^ 


Columbia  ©nitiem'tp 
tntI)eCttpofi^fttjgork 

LIBRARY 


Zen  Epochs  of  Cburcb  Ibistot^ 


3obn  f  ulton,  D.D.,  %%M 


^ol   IX. 


^en  (Bpoc^B  of  C^uvc^  gistorg 


THE  REFORMATION 


BY 

WILLISTON  WALKER 


,  -^ 


Cbarlcs  Scrlbner'$  Sona 

190Q 


V\J  /S^ 


^T' 


Copyright,  1900.  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


THE  CAXTON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK, 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

|N  preparing  a  brief  sketch  of  so  gigantic 
a  movement  as  that  known  as  the  Ref- 
ormation, the  main  task  is  necessarily 
that  of  omission.  Persons  and  facts  of 
significance  crowd  upon  the  historian's 
attention.  But  as  a  selection  is  imperative,  the 
writer  has  chosen  to  treat  with  relative  fulness  the 
initial  and  formative  stages  of  the  Reformation 
movement  and  the  work  of  its  few  preeminent 
leaders.  He  has  therefore  sketched  but  cursorily 
the  political  struggles  of  the  later  Reformation  age. 
Those  conflicts  belong,  indeed,  to  the  most  pictur- 
esque episodes  of  European  history ;  but  they 
added  little  to  the  thoughts  and  principles  which 
the  Reformation  represented.  They  answered  the 
question,  how  far  should  the  sway  of  those  princi- 
ples extend. 

The  plan  of  this  series  of  volumes  provides  for  a 
separate  treatment  of  the  Anglican  Reformation. 

Hartford,  Conn. 
September  i,  1900. 


312907 


■7 


CONTENTS 


f  CHAP.  I.— The  New  Wine  in  the  Old  Bottles.— The 
Reformation  Long  Prepared. — Decline  of  the  Papacy. — 
Growth  of  Christian  Life.— The  New  National  Life, 
France,  England,  Spain,  Italy,  Germany. — Decline  of 
Scholasticism.— The  New  Learning.- Its  Theory  of  Re- 
form.— The  New  Geography.— Reform  by  Councils  Tried. 
' — Marsilius  of  Padua.  —  William  of  Occam.  — Wiclif. — 
Huss.— The  Mystics. — The  Anti-Roman  Sects.— The  New 

Spirit  of  Individualism. — A  Reformation  Inevitable I 

CHAP.  II. — The  Spanish  Awakening. — Reform  Sought  by 
Governmental  Action. — The  Spanish  Religious  Character. 
— Ferdinand  and  Isabella. — Ximenes. — Theological  Learn- 
ing.— The  Inquisition. — Influence  of  the  Spanish  Awaken- 

y  ing K. 53 

^^/CHAP.  111.4-The  Saxon  Revolt.— State  of  Germany.— Its 
f  Divisiorifs  of   Opinion. — Reuchlin. — Luther's   Character. — 

Early  Life. — The  Great  Question. — Luther  a  Monk. — 
Justification  by  Faith  Alone. — Luther  a  Teacher. — In- 
dulgences.— The  Ninety-five  Theses. — Germany  Stirred. — 
Philip  Melanchthon. — The  Leipzig  Disputation. — The  Great 
Tracts  of  1520. — The  Pope's  Bull  Burned. — Worms. — Lu- 
ther in  Retirement. — Wittenberg  in  his  Absence. — Luther's 
Forceful  Return. — Spread  of  Lutheranism. — The  Peasants' 
War. — Breach  with  Erasmus. — Luther's  Marriage. — Organ- 
ization of  the  Lutheran  Churches. — The  Political  Situation. 

— The  Name,  Protestant. — Protestantism  Divided 71 

CHAP.  IV. — The  Revolt  in  German  Switzerland. — Con- 
dition of  Switzerland.— Zwingli's  Early  Life.— His  Spiritual 


vi  Contents. 


PAGE 

Development. — The  Reformation  of  Zurich. — Anabaptists 
Persecuted. — Berne  and  Basel  Revolt  from  Rome. — Martin 
Bucer. — Zwingli's  Theology. — Christ's  Presence  in  the 
Supper. — Saxon  and  Swiss  Reformers  Divided. — Colloquy 
at  Marburg. — Zwingli's  Far-reaching  Plans. — Civil  War  in 

j^     Switzerland. — Zwingli's  Death 147 

fCHAP.  V.-fTHE  Lutheran  Churches  of  Germany. — 
^  Changed'^  Character  of  the  Lutheran  Revolt. — The  Augs- 
burg Confession. — The  Schmalkaldic  League. ^Political 
Situation  Favors  the  Protestants.^ — The  Nuremberg  Truce. 
— Spread  of  Lutheranism. — Growth  of  Catholic  Opposition. 
— The  Frankfort  Suspension. — Reunion  Efforts. — Philip's 
Bigamy. — The  Emperor's  Plans. — Luther's  Death. — Moritz 
of  Saxony. — Collapse  of  the  Schmalkaldic  League. — The 
Interims. — The  Protestant  cottp  d'etat. — Failure  of  the 
Emperor.— Lutheranism  Wins  Equal  Rights. — The  Peace 
of  Augsburg. — Internal  Quarrels  of  the  Lutherans. — Me- 
lanchthon's  Views. — His  Last  Days. — The   "  Rage  of  the 

Theologians." — Disastrous  Effects  of  these  Disputes 181 

,  CHAP.  VI.-4-Calvin  and  his  Work. — Condition  of  France. 
^^^  — Reformation  Enters  Through  the  New  Learning. — Le 
Ffevre  of  Etaples. — Governmental  Hostility. — French  Switz- 
erland, Farel,  Viret  and  Froment. — State  of  Geneva. — It 
Revolts  from  Rome. — Calvin's  Early  Life  and  Education. — 
Conversion  to  Protestantism. — The  Institutes. — Calvin's 
Theology. — Discipline. — Calvin  at  Geneva. — Banishment. — 
In  Strassburg. — His  Return  and  Rule. — The  Genevan 
Constitution. — Contests. — Castellio,  Bolsec  and  Servetus. — 
Calvin's  Work. — Spread  of  His  Views. — Death. — Theodore 

Beza 225 

CHAP.  VII. — The  Protestant  Movement  Carried  to 
Other  Countries. — Condition  of  Scandinavia. — Sweden 
Becomes  Lutheran. — Denmark,  Norway  and  Iceland  Lu- 
theran.— The  Reformation  in  Poland. — Hungary  and 
Transylvania. — Liberal  Stirrings  in  Spain. — The  Religious 
Revival  of  Italy. — Caraffa  and  Contarini. — The  Spanish 
Type  of  Reformation  Victorious. — The  Italian  Anti-Trini- 
tariaus.  —  Socinianism.  —  The  Netherlands.  —  England.  — 
Condition    of    Scotland.  —  Protestant     Beginnings.  —  John 


Contents.  vii 


PAGE 


Knox.— The  Scottish  Revolt  from  '■Rome.— Queen  Mary.— 
Knox's  Work , 277 

CHAP.  VIII.— The  More  Radical  Reformers.— Luther, 
Zwingli  and  Calvin  seem  to  some  but  half-way  Reformers. — 
Genesis  of  the  Radical  Movements.— The  Anabaptists. — 
Their  Beliefs.— Their  Wide  Spread.— Persecution.— The 
Majority  Orderly. — A  Fanatic  Element. — Hofmann. — The 
Miinster  Tragedy. — Menno  Simons  Restores  the  Anabaptist 
Movement. —  Franck.  —  Schwenckf eld.  —  The  Spirituels.  — 
The  Family  of  Love. — Value  of  these  Radical  Movements  335 

CHAP.  IX.— The  Counter-Reformation.— Reform  in  the 
Roman  Church.— Aims  of  the  Counter-Reformation.— It 
Gains  Control  of  the  Papacy.— Theology  Revived.— New 
Orders  and  Congregations. — Awakened  Spiritual  Life. — 
Ignatius  Loyola. — The  Society  of  Jesus. — Its  Character. — 
Spread.—  Schools. —  Missions. —  Xavier. —  The  Council  of 
Trent.— Its  Theology. — Support  Given  by  Catholic  Sover- 
eigns.— The  Roman  Church  Renews  its  Strength 356 

CHAP.  X.— The  Struggle  for  Mastery.— The  Changed 
Political  Situation  of  1559. — Protestantism  in  Peril. — The 
Early  Huguenot  Struggles  in  France. — The  Revolt  of  the 
Netherlands. — William  of  Orange. — Massacre  of  St.  Barthol- 
omew.—The  War  in  the  Netherlands.— Further  Huguenot 
Struggles.— Attitude  of  Elizabeth.— The  Great  Armada.— 
Henry  IV.  Reverses  the  Policy  of  France. — The  Edict  of 
Nantes.— Failure  of  Philip  II. — The  Situation  in  Germany. —  , 
The  Thirty  Years'  War. — Bohemian  Protestantism  Crushed. 
— Wallenstein.  —  Foreign  Intervention.  —  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus. —  Richelieu. —  Germany  Exhausted. —  The  Peace  of 
Westphalia. — The  Lines  Permanently  Drawn.— The  Ref- 
ormation in  Retrospect 403 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NEW  WINE  IN  THE  OLD  BOTTLES. 

jjREAT  events  are  not  without  long  ante- 
cedent causes.  However  unheralded 
they  may  appear  to  contemporary  ob- 
servers, in  the  retrospect  they  are  seen 
to  have  been  due  in  large  part  to 
changes  in  knowledge,  social  conditions  or  opinions 
extending  over  a  protracted  sequence  of  years. 
This  fact,  observable  regarding  the  epochal  move- 
ments of  history  in  general,  is  in  a  special  degree 
characteristic  of  the  momentous  revolution  in 
thought  which  bears  the  name  of  the  Reformation. 
Yet,  as  in  individual  lives,  even  those  of  the  greatest 
of  men,  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  what  is  due  to 
environment  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  age  from 
what  is  the  result  of  forceful  personality,  so  in  the 
story  of  a  movement  as  characterized  by  moulding 
leadership  as  the  Reformation  it  is  impossible  to 
weigh  and  define  the  exact  proportions  assignable  to 
the  results  of  the  slow  growth  of  centuries  and  to 
the  influence  of  leaders  marked  by  as  conspicuous 
individuality  and  powerful  impress  as  any  age  of  the 
world  has  enjoyed.  The  Reformation  is  inconceiv- 
able, in  the  form  which  it  took,  without  the  men 


The  Reformation. 


who  loom  as  heroic  figures  in  its  drama  ;  but  the 
men  of  the  Reformation  could  not  have  done  their 
work  had  it  not  been  for  the  long  preparation  of  the 
peoples  of  Europe  for  the  crisis  in  which  they  were 
to  be  the  guiding  spirits.  With  all  their  strength 
and  originality,  they  were,  nevertheless,  themselves 
the  best  embodiment  of  the  results  of  that  prep- 
aration. 

The  Reformation  itself  was,  moreover,  not  the 
beginning  but  the  culminating  5tage  of  a  great 
movement,  of  which  the  new  political  life  of  Europe, 
the  unlocking  of  strange  continents,  and  the  re- 
vival of  learning  were  all  equally  parts.  Religious 
reform  was  not  the  blossoming  but  the  fruitage  of 
a  general  unfettering  of  the  human  mind.  But  as 
the  mediaeval  social  system  attained  its  highest  per- 
fection in  the  mediaeval  Church,  so  the  break  with 
medisevalism  reached  its  intensest  point  of  contest 
in  the  rejection  of  the  limitations  which  mediaeval 
ecclesiastical  authority  had  imposed  ;  and  hence  the 
Reformation  is  the  crowning  episode  in  that  strug- 
gle for  freedom  of  thought  which  preceded  the 
struggle  for  freedom  in  political  action,  and  which, 
however  imperfectly  fought  out,  was  the  great  con- 
tribution of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  to  human  progress. 

The  mediaeval  theory  of  Christian  society  was 
simple,  however  confused  the  actual  social  state. 
The  visible  unity  of  the  civilized  world  was  a 
thought  inherited  from  the  Roman  empire  ;  and, 
to  the  mediaeval  mind,  inclined  to  reflect  only  in 
the  concrete,  one  which  found  its  expression  in  the 


The   Medtisval  Ideal. 


subjection  of  Christendom  in  its  spiritual  interests 
to  a  single  Church,  of  which  the  papacy  was  the 
divinely  established  head,  and  in  its  temporal  con- 
cerns to  civil  authority — an  authority  having  its 
highest,  though  not  its  only,  representative  in  the 
supposed  successor  to  the  Caesars,  the  occupant  of 
the  throne  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Both  were 
in  harmonious  interplay,  having  as  their  aim  the 
temporal  and  eternal  welfare  of  every  inhabitant  of 
Christendom  ;  but  as  the  spiritual  outweighs  in  im- 
portance the  earthly  and  the  temporal,  so  the 
Church  is  superior  in  its  claims  and  authority — the 
great  churchmen  of  the  middle  ages  insisted — to 
the  State. 

"^  These  are  ideals  of  no  small  grandeur.  The 
Church  to  which  so  high  a  function  was  ascribed 
was  a  gigantic  corporation  whose  existence  was 
maintained  by  sacraments  administered  by  a  di- 
vinely empowered  hierarchy  in  communion  with  a 
visible  head.  All  inhabitants  of  Christendom  were 
initiated  by  it  through  baptism  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  of  which  it  was  the  earthly  embodiment ;  in 
communion  with  it  salvation  was  alone  possible,  and 
that  communion  was  only  to  be  maintained  by  par- 
ticipation in  its  sacraments,  confession  to  its  priests, 
and  obedience  to  its  commands.  It  alone  joined  in 
marriage,  it  alone  gave  honorable  burial,  its  courts 
alone  administered  the  bequests  of  the  departed.  It 
exacted  conformity  to  its  dogmas  as  to  the  sole  pos- 
sible exposition  of  truth  ;-  and  not  only  drove  active 
dissenters  out  of  reputable  association  with  their 
fellow-men,  but  handed  them  over  to  punishments  of 


The  Re/ormatzon. 


the  utmost  severity,  inflicted,  indeed,  in  their  ex- 
tremer  forms  by  civil  authority,  but  at  the  instance 
of  the  Church.  It  taxed  all  Christendom  with  tithes 
and  fees  ;  it  limited  industry  by  multiplied  holidays  ; 
it  separated  a  large  portion  of  the  community  from 
the  helpful  examples,  companionships  and  restraints 
of  married  life.  It  laid  its  hand  on  men  in  their 
education,  their  reading,  their  amusements,  their 
business.  It  touched  them  in  all  their  relations,  not 
merely  in  this  life,  but  in  the  purgatorial  sufferings 
of  the  world  to  come,  and  professed  even  to  open  or 
close  the  door  of  heaven  itself.  By  its  sacramental 
system,  its  celibate  priesthood,  and  its  theory  of 
hierarchical  authority,  it  made  the  ordinary  lay 
Christian  wholly  dependent  upon  the  clergy  for  the 
initiation,  the  upbuilding  and  the  happy  fruition  of 
his  spiritual  life.  It  spoke  with  absolute  authority, 
and  its  condition  of  salvation  was  essentially  obe- 
dience to  its  teaching  and  its  officers,  who  by  divine 
appointment,  as  Hildebrand  told  William  the  Con- 
queror, were  to  answer  for  its  members  before  the 
tribunal  of  God's  judgment.  To  its  authoritative 
priesthood  all  owed  fidelity  ;  and  it,  in  turn,  assured 
all  obedient  sons  of  eternal  felicity. 

Nor  were  these  conceptions  of  the  nature  and 
power  of  the  Church  without  their  great  value  as  an 
educative  force.  The  mediaeval  Church,  by  its 
uniformity,  its  discipline,  and  its  corporate  mould- 
ing power,  did  a  work  for  the  crude  social  life  that 
grew  up  on  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  empire  or 
among  the  new  peoples  outside  the  bounds  to  which 
jR-oman  conquest  had  once  extended  that  no  freer 


The   Medicsval    Church, 


conception  of  Christianity  could  have  accomplished. 
Equally  evident  is  it,  also,  that  the  central  force  in 
the  mediaeval  ecclesiastical  system,  the  papacy,  was, 
on  the  whole,  the  leader  of  Christendom  from  the 
downfall  of  the  Roman  empire  at  least  to  the  thir- 
teenth century.  It  sent  forth  or  superintended 
missionaries  in  England  and  Germany ;  it  united 
Europe  in  the  one  great  combined  effort  of  the 
middle  ages,  the  Crusades ;  it  afforded  the  most 
conspicuous  centre  of  unity  for  western  Christendom 
in  the  divisions  of  feudalism.  Its  more  gifted  popes, 
like  Gregory  I.,  Nicholas  I.,  Hildebrand,  or  Inno- 
cent III.,  belong  to  the  small  number  of  the  world's 
great  rulers  whose  work  affects  long  subsequent 
generations  ;  and  if  the  papal  ofifice  was  adminis- 
tered by  no  single  occupant  equal  in  genius  to  a 
Charlemagne,  it  may,  nevertheless,  be  said  that  the 
papacy  as  a  whole  showed  more  of  enlightenment, 
moral  purpose  and  political  wisdom  than  any  suc- 
cession of  kings  or  emperors  that  mediaeval  Europe 
knew.  In  spite  of  grave  faults  and  periods  of  pro- 
found degradation,  the  papacy  may  be  said  to  have 
shown  itself  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  social  and 
religious  life  prevalent  in  Europe  certainly  till  the 
close  of  the  Crusades.  The  best  men  of  the  period, 
like  Anselm,  Bernhard,  or  Thomas  Aquinas,  were 
its  hearty  supporters. 

But  to  say  that  the  papacy  was  adapted  to  the 
conditions  of  mediaeval  Europe  is  not  to  imply  that 
the  institution  was  permanently  illustrative  of  the 
highest  conceptions  of  the  Christian  life,  or  even 
that  the  mediaeval  ideal  of  Christian  society  was 


The  Reformation. 


ever  approximately  realized.  Church  and  State, 
theoretically  harmonious,  were  in  constant  struggle 
one  with  another  for  the  mastery,  usually  with 
very  earthly  weapons ;  and  the  victories  of  the 
papacy  were  not  such  as  to  bring  to  it  permanent 
spiritual  strength.  If  religion  be  broadly  considered 
as  a  spiritual  force  controlling  the  lives  of  men 
rather  than  as  bound  up  with  a  particular  system  of 
doctrine  and  of  polity,  there  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose, as  has  sometimes  been  alleged,  that  the 
generations  immediately  preceding  the  Reformation 
were  less  moved  by  spiritual  concerns  than  earlier 
centuries.  It  was  as  true  then  as  it  now  is  that 
religious  interest  is  cyclic  and  recurrent  in  intensity 
rather  than  continuous,  but  the  evidence  is  over- 
whelming that  the  whole  mediaeval  period  witnessed 
a  gradual  deepening  of  the  hold  of  religion  on  life 
and  thought,  so  that  in  strength  and  power  the 
religious  life  among  the  people  of  Germany  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  for  instance,  showed  vast  prog- 
ress from  the  condition  of  things  among  the 
Franks  in  the  eighth  century.  If  the  wider  inter- 
ests of  religion  are  had  in  view,  the  period  just 
previous  to  the  Reformation  witnessed  not  the 
lowest  decline  but  the  highest  development  of 
mediaeval  Christianity — high  enough  to  be  dissatis- 
fied with  its  state,  to  feel  dimly  the  inadequacy  of 
its  institutions,  and  the  need  of  their  improvement. 
Yet  if  we  consider  the  organized  forces  of 
Christianity,  especially  the  hierarchical  and  monas- 
tic systems,  no  such  continuous  amelioration  can  be 
affirmed.     On  the  contrary,  after  a  period  of  effi- 


Decline  of  the  Papacy. 


dent  service,  they  became  less  and  less  able  to 
minister  to  the  needs  of  Christian  men,  partly- 
through  their  own  decay,  and  partly  through  their 
insufficiency  to  meet  the  wants  of  an  expanding  and 
less  fettered  religious  life.  The  tendency  of  the 
clergy  to  become  essentially  a  beaurocracy  which 
had  been  manifested  in  some  degree  since  the  con- 
version of  the  Roman  empire  increased  throughout 
the  middle  ages  ;  and  with  the  decline  of  crusading 
zeal  and  its  victory  over  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
in  the  thirteenth  century  a  rapid  deterioration  was 
evident  in  the  ideals  of  the  papacy  itself.  Its  claims 
and  those  of  its  supporters  never  were  loftier. 
Augustinus  Triumphus  went  further,  it  may  be, 
than  most  of  his  contemporary  upholders  of  the 
papacy  would  have  done  when,  in  1324,  he  declared 
that  the  decisions  of  God  and  of  the  pope  are 
always  the  same  ;  but  an  orator  in  the  Fifth  Lat- 
eran  Council  addressed  Julius  II.  as  "  Tu  alter  Deus 
in  terris  ;"  and,  as  near  to  the  Lutheran  upheaval 
as  1 5 16,  Leo  X.  solemnly  reaffirmed  the  claim  of 
Boniface  VIII.,  formulated  two  centuries  before, 
that  not  to  obey  the  pope  is  to  commit  a  soul- 
destroying  sin. 

But,  in  spite  of  such  declarations  as  have  just 
been  cited,  the  papacy  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  showed  itself  less  deserving  of 
obedience — in  so  far  as  obedience  was  due  to  moral 
leadership — than  it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Hilde- 
brand  or  Urban  II.  The  reservation  of  profitable 
ecclesiastical  benefices  to  be  filled  in  every  land  by 
papal  appointments,  and  the  exaction  of  a  consid- 


8  The  Reformatioji. 

arable  portion  of  the  income  of  each  new  incumbent 
of  any  churchly  ofifice  as  a  tax  payable  to  the  papal 
treasury,  became  significant  features  of  the  papal 
policy  in  the  thirteenth  century  and  grew  with 
startling  rapidity  under  the  Avignon  popes,  flour- 
ishing even  more  in  the  exigencies  of  the  schism, 
till  they  could  hardly  be  distinguished  from  a  sale 
of  offices.  I  The  ancient  system  of  indulgences  was 
rapidly  transformed  into  a  means  of  political 
favoritism,  and  especially  into  a  source  of  revenue. 
Papal  taxes,  exactions,  and  interferences  constantly 
increased  as  the  papal  prerogatives  were  applied  to 
the  mint  and  cummin  of  ecclesiastical  administra- 
tion until  it  seemed  as  if  the  papacy  itself  was 
primarily  a  great  taxing  agency.^  Nor  was  the 
spiritual  character  of  the  popes  in  general,  from  the 
thirteenth  century  to  the  Reformation,  such  as  to 
counterbalance  the  deteriorating  tendencies  just 
outlined.  Good  men  there  were  among  them,  but 
men  of  impressive  religious  influence  were  lacking  ; 
while  in  Clement  VI.,  John  XXIII.,  Innocent 
VIII.,  Alexander  VL,  or  Julius  II.,  the  papacy 
sank  to  a  worldliness  which  placed  it  on  a  level  with 
the  worst  princes  of  the  age.  And  this  tendency 
toward  the  secular,  not  to  add  also  the  immoral, 
increased  as  the  Reformation  era  approached.  The 
worst  popes  of  this  period  of  spiritual  weakness  were 
not  those  of  the  schism,  simoniacal  as  was  Boniface 
IX.,  but  those  semi-heathen  participants  in  the  full 
light  of  the  ItaHan  Renascence  of  the  closing  quarter 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  papacy,  through  the 
long  struggles  of  the  Councils  of  that  century,  was 


Decline  of  the  Papacy. 


a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help  to  reform.  By  the 
year  1500,  it  was  evident  that  churchly  renovation 
through  its  initiation  was  out  of  the  question. 

The  decline  of  the  papacy,  moreover,  involved  in 
large  measure  the  spiritual  decay  of  the  clerical 
body  of  which  it  was  the  head.  That  decline  was, 
it  is  equally  true,  made  possible  in  its  extreme 
degree  by  the  widely  prevalent  decay  of  discipline 
and  the  low  spiritual  state  of  the  clerical  orders  as  a 
whole.  The  papacy  was  no  worse  than  the  higher 
clergy  generally  ;  and  the  same  causes  produced  the 
same  worldly  traits  in  both.  But,  admitting  its  ex- 
aggeration, there  is  still  much  truth  in  the  complaint 
of  Nicholas  of  Clemanges,  uttered  at  the  beginning 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  that  the  corruption  of  the 
higher  clerical  offices  had  led  to  the  filling  of  the 
lower  with  ignorant  and  unworthy  men,  and  to  the 
degradation  of  the  monastic  orders,  till  the  spiritual 
condition  of  the  Church  had  become  such  as  appar- 
ently to  threaten  its  very  continuance  as  an 
organization.  Piety  among  the  population  of 
Christendom  generally  had  probably  advanced,  as 
has  already  been  pointed  out ;  but  the  official 
leaders  of  Christendom  had  grown  increasingly 
separate  from  the  laity,  were  felt  to  be  less  adequate 
to  the  expression  of  religious  faith,  and  less  moved 
by  a  high  and  unworldly  spiritual  zeal  than  they 
once  had  been. 

While  the  papacy  had  thus  been  deteriorating  for 
more  than  two  centuries  previous  to  the  Reforma- 
tion, certain  changes  had  been  taking  place  in  west- 
ern Christendom  which  would  have  taxed  the  ut- 


lo  The  Reformation. 

most  powers  of  the  papacy  in  its  best  days  to  have 
controlled  in  such  fashion  as  to  retain  its  mediaeval 
prestige  and  authority.  Life  had  been  expanding 
in  many  directions,  and  the  simpler  conditions  of 
the  middle  ages  had  been  passing  into  more  com- 
plex, more  developed,  less  easily  directed  social 
forms. 

I  The  most  obvious  of  such  changes  and  the  most 
tangible  in  its  effects  on  the  papacy  was  the!  rise  of 
modern  national  life.  A  large  part  of  the  success 
of  the  mediaeval  popes  had  been  due  to  the  fact 
that  although  royal  titles  were  worn,  as  in  France, 
during  the  middle  ages,  wherever  the  countries  of 
Europe  were  permeated  by  feudalism  a  strong  cen- 
tral authority  was  lacking,  a  feeling  of  national 
unity  was  not  found,  and  papal  authority  encoun- 
tered nothing  like  a  national  resistance.  Feudalism 
prevailed  very  unequally  in  different  lands ;  but  it 
was  a  divisive  force  always.  Germany  had  seemed 
to  promise  an  exception  to  this  mediaeval  disorgan- 
ization ;  but  the  work  of  its  abler  emperors  could 
not  bring  a  permanent  national  unity.  Its  imperial 
ambitions  turning  it  aside  from  the  path  of  internal 
development,  its  disputes  as  to  the  occupancy  of 
the  imperial  ofifice,  its  internal  dissensions  and  its 
considerable  degree  of  feudalization  made  the  em- 
pire weaker  than  the  papacy  in  the  struggles  of  the 
eleventh,  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries. 

The  unfolding  of  modern  nationality  came  first 
in  France.  Three  able  kings,  Louis  VL  (1108-37), 
Philip  Augustus  (i  179-1223),  and  Louis  IX. 
(1226-70),  slowly  raised  the  royal  power  to  a  greater 


France.  1 1 

« 

height  than  that  of  any  vassal  of  the  French  crown 
and  developed  a  sense  of  national  unity  in  that 
rudimentary  form  of  a  perception  of  common  in- 
terests as  Frenchmen  and  hostility  to  all  outside  of 
French  territory  as  foreigners.  So  strong  was  this 
comparatively  new-kindled  feeling  that  Philip  IV. 
(1285-13 14)  could  buttress  himself  impregnably 
upon  it  in  his  contest  with  Boniface  VIII.,  and 
could  compel  the  papacy  itself  to  leave  its  ancient 
seat  under  Clement  V.  and  become  in  large  measure 
the  tool  of  the  French  monarchy.  Much  that  these 
French  sovereigns  had  gained  seemed  lost  in  the 
wars  with  England  from  1339  to  1453,  which,  at 
times,  were  almost  destructive  to  the  royal  power 
in  France  ;  but  the  monarchy  emerged  from  the 
long  contests  stronger  than  ever,  for  their  cost  to 
the  feudal  nobility  was  far  greater  than  to  the  kings. 
So  ruinous  to  the  power  of  the  French  nobles  were 
these  wars,  that,  under  Louis  XI.  (1461-83),  the 
monarchy  was  able  to  assert  an  authority  that  was 
in  many  ways  absolute  ;  and  so  largely  had  France 
become  a  centralized  state  by  the  close  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  that,  under  Louis  XL's  son,  Charles 
VIII.  (1483-98),  the  nation  dominated  by  the  king 
began  a  career  of  attempted  foreign  conquest  that 
was  to  modify  the  politics  of  Europe  throughout 
the  whole  Reformation  period.  The  same  central- 
izing policy  and  the  same  attempt  to  extend  the 
borders  of  France  were  pursued  by  Louis  XII. 
(1498-15 1 5),  and  even  more  conspicuously  by  the 
brilliant  and  ambitious  Francis  I.  (1515-47),  whose 
reign  was  contemporary  with  the  early  course  of 


12  The  Reformation, 

the  Reformation.  Under  his  rule  France  enjoyed 
a  splendid,  if  corrupt,  court,  an  aggressive  foreign 
policy  and  military  glory,  not  leading,  however,  to 
permanent  military  success.  The  contrast  between 
the  France  of  Francis  I.  and  that  of  a  Philip  I. 
(1060-1108)  is  that  between  disorganization  and 
unity,  between  weakness  through  division  and  a  de- 
gree of  strength  such  as  no  completely  feudal  sys- 
tem could  approach. 

In  England  a  similar  growth  in  national  senti- 
ment and  in  royal  power  is  to  be  noted.  Edward 
I.  (1272-1307)  had  felt  strong  enough  to  limit 
the  abuse  of  ecclesiastical  holdings  of  land  by 
the  statute  of  mortmain  in  1279;  Edward  III. 
(1327-77)  had  gone  further,  and,  with  the  aid  of 
Parliament,  had  restricted  papal  appointments  to 
English  livings  and  appeals  to  papal  courts  by  the 
statutes  of  provisors  and  of  praemunire  in  1350  and 
1353.  In  1366  Parliament  had  refused  longer  to 
pay  the  special  tax  which  John  had  granted  to  In- 
nocent III.  in  1213,  as  a  pledge  of  English  sub- 
mission to  the  papacy.  During  the  closing  years  of 
the  reign  of  Edward  III.  and  the  beginning  of  that 
of  Richard  II.  (1377-99),  Wiclif  acquired  not 
merely  much  popular  following  in  his  anti-papal 
endeavors,  but  considerable  support  from  those 
prominent  in  English  politics.  The  incoming  of 
the  house  of  Lancaster  with  Henry  IV.  (1399-1413) 
somewhat  strengthened  the  position  of  the  Church, 
whose  aid  the  Lancastrian  sovereigns  sought,  and  the 
monarchy  itself  seemed  near  to  shipwreck  in  the 
struggles  between  Yorkists  and   Lancastrians  '^om 


England.  1 3 

1455  to  1485.  But,  as  the  long  wars  with  England 
proved  to  the  ultimate  advantage  of  the  French 
monarchy  by  the  destruction  they  brought  to  the 
French  nobility,  so  the  wars  of  the  Roses  cost  the 
nobles  of  England  much  more  than  they  did  the 
crown.  The  monarchy  emerged  from  them  by  the 
accession  of  Henry  VII.  (1485-1509),  the  first  of 
the  house  of  Tudor,  with  power  greater  than  it  had 
ever  possessed  before.  Parliament  survived  ;  the 
king  was  still  bound  to  submit  to  law,  in  theory  at 
least,  as  fully  as  any  of  his  subjects;  but,  prac- 
tically, the  highest  authority  in  the  state  was  the 
will  of  the  sovereign.  And  so  far  had  a  sense  of 
national  unity  grown  that  the  sovereigns  of  the 
Tudor  line,  arbitrary  as  they  were,  were  generally 
popular  as  embodying  the  national  aspirations  and 
affording  a  true  national  executive.  With  the 
death  of  Henry  VII.  in  1509,  the  ablest  of  the 
Tudors,  Henry  VIII.,  had  come  to  a  throne  which 
he  was  to  occupy  till  1 547 — a  series  of  years  more 
momentous  than  any  period  of  similar  length  in 
English  history.  Probably  national  spirit,  opposi- 
tion to  foreign  rule,  and  a  sense  of  corporate  unity 
were  more  highly  developed  in  England  than  in  any 
other  country  at  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation. 

Spain  was  the  political  marvel  of  the  years  im- 
mediately preceding  the  Reformation.  Aside  from 
the  routes  of  commerce  between  Europe  and 
the  Orient,  barred  by  the  Pyrenees  from  easy  inter- 
course with  other  European  lands,  and  ruled,  from 
711  onward,  over  most  of  its  extent  by  the  disciples 
of  Mohammed,  its  share  in  the  life  of  mediaeval  Eu- 


14     '  The  Reformation. 

rope  had  been  slight.  Its  own  history  had  been  that 
of  a  permanent  crusade  of  its  Christian  inhabitants 
against  the  Moslems,  by  which  the  latter  had  gradu- 
ally been  driven  southward,  till,  severely  defeated  in 
the  battle  of  Tolosa  in  1 2 1 2,  they  had  soon  after  been 
confined  to  the  realm  of  Granada,  while  the  Christians 
were  grouped  in  the  four  kingdoms  of  Castile, 
Aragon,  Portugal  and  Navarre.  These  states  were 
weak  through  mutual  warfare,  and  the  independence 
and  jealousies  of  their  feudal  nobility.  The  royal 
power  in  each  was  feeble.  Till  past  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century  nothing  that  could  properly 
be  called  a  Spanish  nation  had  come  into  being,  and 
the  influence  of  Spain  on  the  rest  of  Europe  was 
relatively  inconsiderable. 

Suddenly  this  insignificance  was  at  an  end,  and  as 
the  sixteenth  century  opened,  Spain  had  risen  to 
the  position  of  the  first  power  in  Europe — a  trans- 
formation as  startling  to  the  politicians  of  that  day 
as  the  rise  of  the  Scandinavian  lands  to  political 
supremacy  during  the  next  generation  would  be  to 
the  statesmen  of  our  time.  The  foundation  of  the 
modern  Spanish  monarchy  was  laid  when,  in  1469, 
the  prospective  rulership  of  the  greater  portion  of 
the  Spanish  peninsula  was  united  by  the  marriage 
of  Ferdinand,  heir  to  the  throne  of  Aragon,  with 
Isabella,  heiress  of  Castile.  Two  sovereigns  of 
greater  abilities  have  probably  never  held  rule 
together.  Ferdinand,  skilful,  diplomatic,  far- 
sighted  and  heavy-handed,  was  admirably  supple- 
mented by  the  conscientious,  high-minded,  religious 
Isabella.     The  authority  of  the  crown  was  stren- 


Spain.  1 5 

uously  asserted,  the  internal  disunions  of  Castile 
and  of  Aragon  were  vigorously  put  down,  the  nobles 
and  the  Church  were  bent  to  the  royal  wills.  In 
1492,  Granada  was  added,  by  the  defeat  of  its 
Moorish  rulers,  to  the  Spanish  realm.  The  attempt- 
ed conquests  of  France  enabled  Ferdinand  to 
extend  his  power  over  Naples  by  1504,  and  speedily 
to  spread  the  Spanish  influence  to  other  parts  of 
Italy  ;  while  the  discovery  of  a  new  world  not  only 
gave  the  Spanish  crown  vast  possessions  beyond  the 
Atlantic,  but  poured  a  revenue  into  the  Spanish 
treasury  such  as  no  European  sovereign  had  hith- 
erto enjoyed.  No  wonder  men  were  looking  with 
amazement  and  with  concern  at  the  fresh  young 
power  of  Spain  as  the  Reformation  opened,  and 
this  concern  was  the  deeper  when,  on  the  death  of 
Ferdinand  in  1 5 16,  these  great  possessions  came  into 
the  hands  of  his  grandson  of  sixteen,  already  master 
of  the  Netherlands,  and  soon  to  rule  a  large  portion 
of  Germany  and  wear  the  imperial  title  as  Charles  V. 
Italy,  in  this  period,  presents  a  complete  contrast 
to  the  three  countries  which  have  just  been  consid- 
ered. Nowhere  was  wealth  so  great,  culture  so 
diffused,  art  so  developed,  or  commercial  activity 
so  marked  as  in  the  northern  half  of  the  peninsula. 
But  nowhere  was  political  union  more  wanting  than 
in  Italy.  Some  degree  of  consolidation  had,  in 
deed,  taken  place  since  the  minutely  subdivided 
time  when  Francis  of  Assisi,  the  future  founder  of 
the  great  mendicant  order,  could  be  held  a  prisoner 
of  war  at  Perugia,  within  sight  of  his  home,  by  the 
forces  of  this  near-by  enemy  of  his  native  city.    Five 


1 6  The  Reformation. 


states  included  the  greater  part  of  Italy  at  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century — Milan  and  Venice  on  the 
north  ;  Florence,  the  States  of  the  Church,  and 
Naples  embracing  its  central  and  southern  por- 
tions. These  states  Avere  continually  at  war  one 
with  another.  Their  quarrels,  their  leagues,  their, 
treaties,  were  kaleidoscopic. 

These  long-continuing  disputes  produced  results 
of  importance.  They  compelled  the  papacy  to 
become  politically  one  of  several  Italian  principali- 
ties, differing  little  from  the  others  in  methods  or 
aims  of  political  advancement.  It  was  as  a  thor- 
oughly secular-minded  Italian  prince,  for  instance, 
that  Alexander  VI.  (1492-1503)  intrigued  in  Italian 
affairs,  and  sought  the  advancement  of  his  own 
family;  or  Julius  II.  (1503-13)  led  his  troops  as  a 
commanding  general  against  Perugia  and  Bologna. 
Italian  politics,  rather  than  religious  considerations, 
often  shaped  the  action  of  the  papacy  during  the 
opening  years  of  the  Reformation,  so  that,  for 
political  advantage,  the  papacy  at  times  aided 
causes  the  success  of  which  made  for  the  spread  of 
Protestantism,  as  when,  by  supporting  Francis  I.  of 
France  in  1526,  Clement  VII.  prevented  the  em- 
peror Charles  V.  from  effective  interference  with 
the  Reformation. 

The  wealth  and  weakness  of  divided  Italy  led  to 
attacks  upon  it  by  its  stronger  neighbors  as  soon  as 
their  dawning  national  life  developed  a  spirit  of 
conquest.  For  these  attacks  beginning  with  the 
French  invasion  under  Charles  VIII.  in  1494,  their 
rival  claims  to  Milan  and  Naples  gave  France  and 


Italy.  1 7 

Spain  constant  pretexts  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  Spain 
prevailed.  But  the  efforts  of  the  popes  of  the 
opening  decades  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  di- 
rected toward  such  a  playing  off  of  the  rival 
invaders  one  against  another,  and  such  combina- 
tions with  other  European  powers,  as  to  advance 
their  own  interests  and  maintain  their  political 
independence.  Thus,  in  1495,  Alexander  VI. 
joined  with  Spain,  Germany,  Milan  and  Venice  to 
drive  out  the  recent  French  conquerors  of  Naples  ; 
but,  by  1499,  in  order  to  increase  his  family  posses- 
sions in  the  Romagna,  Alexander  was  aiding  the 
French  to  gain  Milan.  Julius  II.  found  Venice  a 
bar  to  his  progress,  as  Maximilian  of  Germany  had 
also  done,  and  therefore,  in  1508,  Juhus,  Maxi- 
milian, France,  and  in  a  half-hearted  way  Spain, 
formed  the  "  League  of  Cambrai  "  against  the 
Venetian  state.  But  French  advances  alarmed  the 
warlike  pope,  and,  by  151 1,  he  had  called  into 
being  the  "  Holy  League"  in  which  the  papacy, 
Venice,  Spain,  and  ultimately  both  Germany  and 
England,  joined  in  opposition  to  French  con- 
quests on  Italian  soil.  Once  again  the  scenes 
shifted,  and,  by  151 5,  Julius  II. 's  successor,  Leo  X., 
was  conspiring  with  the  French  to  drive  the 
Spaniards  out  of  Naples  ;  while  he  was  equally 
ready  to  enter  into  agreements  with  other  powers 
which  promised  to  lessen  French  influence  on  the 
Italian  peninsula.  And  so  the  attempts  of  the 
popes  to  win  something  of  political  advantage  from 
the  rivalries  of  the  greater  European  powers  con- 
tinued, the  papacy,  like  other  Italian  sovereignties, 


1 8  The  Reformation. 

all  the  while  sinking  in  political  importance,  till 
with  the  capture  of  Rome  by  Spanish  and  German 
troops  in  1527,  its  political  weakness  was  fully 
demonstrated,  and  the  Spanish  preponderance  in  the 
affairs  of  Italy  was  unmistakable.  Not  all  Italian 
states  came  under  foreign  rule.  The  papacy,  for 
instance,  continued  its  territorial  sovereignty,  how- 
ever largely  dominated  in  political  affairs  by  foreign 
interests.  But  Italy  practically  lost  its  independ- 
ence without  diminishing  its  divisions.  It  suffered 
the  evils  of  conquest  without  the  advantages  of 
incorporation  in  a  strong  nation.  It  had  no  nation- 
ality of  its  own  in  the  Reformation  period.  Its 
story  throughout  that  period  was  one  of  increasing 
misery,  decay,  and  political  insignificance. 

Germany,  during  the  three  centuries  preceding  the 
Reformation,  exhibited  no  growth  in  the  power  of 
its  nominal  executive,  the  Holy  Roman  emperor,  at 
all  correspondent  to  the  contemporary  increase  in 
royal  authority  in  France,  England  and  Spain.  The 
country  had  too  many  elements  of  strength  to  make 
such  a  fate  as  that  of  Italy  possible,  but  the  politi- 
cal disorganization  was  much  the  same.  The  em- 
pire did,  indeed,  rise  above  the  condition  of  weak- 
ness which  allowed  Innocent  III.  (i  198-12 16)  to 
dictate  the  bestowal  of  its  crown.  The  German 
nobles  gathered  at  Rense,  in  1338,  had  the  courage 
to  declare  that  the  emperor  derived  his  title  and  au- 
thority from  them  and  not  from  his  coronation  by 
the  pope.  The  Golden  Bull  of  1356  defined  the 
electors  and  their  rights.  And,  shortly  before  the 
Reformation,  serious  attempts  were  made  to  give  a 


Germany.  1 9 

constitution  to  the  divided  German  land  by  devel- 
oping the  old  feudal  imperial  diet,  or  Reichstag,  so 
that  it  should  meet  annually,  in  three  houses,  com- 
posed respectively  of  electors,  princes  and  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  imperial  cities,  and  should  have 
a  real  share  in  the  government  (1487,  1489,  1495). 
At  the  same  time  a  general  judicial  tribunal  for  the 
whole  empire  was  made  a  fixed  part  of  the  imperial 
system  (1495);  the  empire  was  divided  into  districts 
for  the  better  preservation  of  the  public  peace 
(15 12),  and  efforts  were  begun  to  establish  an  im- 
perial army  and  to  collect  taxes  for  the  imperial 
treasury.  But  these  reforms  had  little  vitality  in 
them.  The  Diet,  unlike  the  English  Parliament, 
had  no  place  for  the  representatives  of  the  lower 
nobility,  much  less  for  those  of  the  people  generally. 
The  decisions  of  the  supreme  court  could  not  be 
enforced,  the  imperial  taxes  could  not  be  collected. 
No  emperor  of  the  Reformation  age  had  the  au- 
thority in  Germany  which  Henry  III.  or  Frederick 
Barbarossa  had  enjoyed. 

Nor  was  Germany  itself  a  united  nation  in  the 
sense  in  which  France  and  England  had  become 
united.  The  higher  nobility  were  almost  independ- 
ent of  the  emperor.  The  lesser  knights,  especially 
in  the  Rhine  country,  declared  that  their  allegiance 
was  due  to  no  one  but  the  emperor  himself — that  is, 
they  held  themselves  practically  independent  of  all 
control,  and  often  lived  by  plunder  and  highway 
robbery.  Jealous  of  the  cities  and  of  the  greater 
nobles,  men  like  Franz  von  Sickingen  or  Gotz  von 
Berlichingen  were  an  element  of  disorder  which  no 


20  The  Reformation. 

strong  government  could  have  tolerated,  but  in 
whose  deeds  the  unrest  of  the  lower  nobility  found 
expression. 

The  peasantry  of  Germany  was  not  merely  with- 
out share  of  any  sort  in  government,  it  was  in  a 
state  of  serfdom — a  social  condition  which  had 
ended  in  England,  and  had  largely  passed  away  in 
France.  Forced  to  labor  for  lawless  and  exacting 
masters,  the  worst  possible  state  of  feeling  existed 
widely  between  the  peasantry  and  the  local  nobles, 
especially  in  southwestern  Germany,  where  the  ex- 
ample of  Swiss  independence  had  much  influence. 
Peasant  insurrections  took  place  in  Franconia  and 
Swabia  in  1476,  1492,  15 12  and  1513  ;  and  though 
the  same  unrest  of  the  lower  classes  did  not  exist  in 
northern  and  central  Germany  to  any  corresponding 
degree,  disaffection  with  existing  authority  in  Church 
and  State  was  more  widespread  in  Germany  at  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  century  than  in  any  other 
country  in  Europe. 

A  growing  element  in  the  politics  of  the  land 
were  the  imperial  cities,  looking  to  no  superior  au- 
thority but  the  feeble  rule  of  the  emperor,  and 
enjoying  not  only  local  self-control,  but  by  their 
leagues  and  their  mutual  seh-support  forming  a 
power  of  increasing  importance.  Their  industry, 
their  wealth,  and  their  commercial  activity  made 
them  opponents  of  the  exactions  of  the  nobility 
and  of  the  priesthood  alike  ;  but  they  were  seldom 
at  peace  within  their  own  borders.  Their  govern- 
ment was  aristocratic,  their  guilds  were  exclusive, 
and    they  were  fully  as  narrow-minded  and    self- 


Germany.  2 1 

seeking,  as  far  as  the  larger  interests  of  Germany 
were  concerned,  as  the  princes  themselves. 

Yet  while  all  Germany  was  thus  in  unrest,  and 
the  emperor  had  little  power  by  reason  of  his  im- 
perial office,  many  of  the  component  principalities 
of  the  empire  were  growing  slowly  in  strength  and 
had  already  developed  a  certain  degree  of  independ- 
ent, and  almost  of  national,  life  within  their  limited 
borders.  The  two  Saxonies — electoral  and  ducal — 
Brandenburg,  Bavaria,  Hesse,  the  Rhenish  Palati- 
nate, were  developing  a  locally  centred  life  under  the 
more  prominent  German  princes.  Certain  ruling 
families  were  conspicuous  in  German  politics  at  the 
dawn  of  the  Reformation,  of  which  the  most  famous 
was  that  Habsburg  line,  the  sovereigns  of  the  Aus- 
trian states,  who  gave  emperors  to  Germany  in  un- 
interrupted male  sequence  from  1438  to  1740,  and 
whose  representative  by  female  descent  possesses 
the  throne  of  Austria  to-day.  The  Habsburg 
strength  was  in  its  hereditary  territories,  rather 
than  in  its  occupancy  of  the  imperial  office,  and 
these  personal  holdings  of  the  Habsburg  family 
were  rapidly  increased,  in  the  years  just  preceding 
the  Reformation,  by  reason  of  two  remarkable 
marriages. 

The  first  of  these  significant  unions  was  that  of 
Maximilian  I.,  who  wore  the  imperial  title  from 
1493  to  1 5 19.  The  death  of  Charles  the  Bold,  the 
ambitious  Duke  of  Burgundy,  in  1477,  left  the  heir- 
ship of  the  Netherlands,  as  well  as  of  the  Burgun- 
dian  territories,  to  his  daughter,  Mary,  whose  great 
inheritance  led  to  her  marriage  the  same  year  to 


22  The  Reformation. 

Maximilian,  much  to  the  disfavor  of  Louis  XL  of 
France,  who  seized  a  portion  of  the  lands  to  which 
Mary  laid  claim.  The  seeds  of  quarrel  thus  sown 
between  the  kings  of  France  and  the  Habsburg  line 
were  to  bear  harvest  of  rivalry  and  blood  till,  nearly 
three  centuries  later,  in  1756,  this  long  feud  was  laid 
aside  on  the  outbreak  of  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
This  rivalry  was  made  but  more  certain  and  in- 
tense by  the  second  marriage  by  which  the  Habs- 
burg interests  were  conspicuously  advanced — that 
of  Philip,  the  son  of  Maximilian  and  Mary,  to 
Joanna,  daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  of 
Spain,  and  heiress  of  the  vast  possessions  of  that 
wide-extended  sovereignty.  So  it  came  about 
that  Philip  and  Joanna's  son,  Charles,  became  by 
inheritance,  in  the  second  decade  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  ruler  of  the  greatest  extent  of  territory 
held  by  a  single  sovereign  since  the  downfall  of  the 
Roman  empire — a  territory  without  unity,  made  up 
of  the  most  diverse  races  and  cultures,  and,  as  the 
event  proved,  to  be  torn  by  two  opposite  and  con- 
tending types  of  churchly  reform,  f  And,  with  this 
vast  inheritance,  to  which  the  imperial  crown  was 
added  by  election  in  15 19,  Charles  V.  became  heir 
also  to  the  rivalry  between  the  Habsburgs  and  the 
sovereigns  of  France,  which  is  the  key  to  the  greater 
politics  of  the  Reformation  period.  |^That  rivalry 
and  the  struggle  for  religious  reform  interplay 
throughout  the  Reformation  age,  constantly  modi- 
fying each  other."\  That  period  of  history  cannot  be 
understood  without  a  recollection  of  this  contest  of 
two  gigantic  political  powers,  both  adhering  to  the 


Rival  Political  Powers.  23 

ancient  faith  throughout  the  struggle — a  contest 
which  largely  determined  the  issue  of  the  doctrinal 
controversies  in  the  several  lands  which  felt  the  im- 
pulse of  religious  revolution. 

It  is  evident  that  to  maintain  its  ancient  influence 
in  civil  affairs  in  the  face  of  the  new  national  life  and 
of  the  greater  politics  of  Europe,  the  papacy  had  a 
far  more  serious  task  than  it  had  mastered  during 
the  middle  ages.  If  it  could  still  interfere  in  the 
politics  of  a  divided  land,  like  Germany,  so  as  to 
determine  so  momentous  a  question  as  the  suc- 
cession to  an  imperial  electorate,  or  annul  a  de- 
cision of  the  highest  tribunal,  its  power  of  inter- 
mixture in  civil  concerns  had  been  much  curtailed 
in  England,  France  and  Spain  by  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  sovereigns  of  those 
lands  had  taken  the  designation  of  the  higher 
clergy  largely  into  their  own  hands.  Even  in  Ger- 
many, whence  Emperor  Maximilian  declared  that 
the  pope  drew  a  hundred  times  larger  revenue  than 
he,  whence  payments  sufficient  to  have  sent  into  the 
field  an  army  adequate  to  stem  the  ominous  con- 
quests of  the  Turks  flowed  vainly  every  year  to 
Rome,  the  tide  of  opposition  to  papal  intermed- 
dling was  strongly  rising,  so  that  it  found  expres- 
sion in  formal  protests  by  repeated  diets  of  the 
empire,  notably  by  that  of  15 10. 

If  the  stronger  governments  thus  resisted,  and 
even  the  weaker  criticised,  some  of  the  more  flagrant 
of  the  multiplied  papal  exactions  and  interferences, 
what  wonder  that  men  were  asking,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  sixteenth  century,  whether  the   clergy 


24  The  Reformation. 

ought  to  be  free  from  the  burden  of  taxation, 
whether  it  was  just  that  special  ecclesiastical  courts 
should  take  the  place  of  the  judicial  tribunals  of  the 
land  whenever  the  interests  of  a  clergyman  were  in- 
volved, and  whether  a  system  that  taxed  all  indus- 
try, taking  from  the  peasant  the  tenth  of  every 
humble  product  of  his  farm,  or  burdening  the 
wealthy  of  a  whole  district  to  pay  the  charges  inci- 
dent to  the  appointment  to  office  of  an  archbishop, 
was  not  a  system  of  extortion  that  ought  to  be  over- 
thrown. 

And  men  asked  these  questions  all  the  more  im- 
peratively because  the  growth  of  the  new  national 
life  was  a  growth  of  lay  influence.  The  old  su- 
premacy of  the  ecclesiastical  adviser  in  royal  councils 
was  challenged  by  the  lawyer ;  and  though  the 
churchman  might  still  be  the  first  servant  of  the 
crown  in  civil  affairs,  he  no  longer  enjoyed  such  a 
monopoly  of  the  learning  and  experience  necessary 
for  the  conduct  of  government  as  he  had  possessed 
in  the  middle  ages.  In  his  answer  to  Boniface  VIII., 
two  centuries  before  Luther's  revolt,  Philip  IV.  of 
France  had  declared  that  *'the  Holy  Mother 
Church  ...  is  composed  not  only  of  clergy- 
men, but  also  of  laymen,"  and  the  note  then  struck 
is  one  heard  with  increasing  frequency  till  the  com- 
ing of  the  Reformation.  Even  had  the  papacy  con- 
tinued to  exemplify  the  moral  earnestness  that  it 
had  exhibited  under  Hildebrand  or  Urban  II.,  it 
would  have  found  the  task  of  holding  in  check  the 
new  tendencies  in  the  political  world  of  the  six- 
teenth century  one  taxing  the  utmost  of  its  strength. 


Decline   of  Scholasticism.  25 

A  second  influence,  far  more  subtle  and  there- 
fore difficult  to  estimate  in  its  effects  upon  the 
Church  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, but  probably  even  more  profound  than  the 
rise  of  the  new  nations  in  its  modifying  results,  was 
the  change  in  mental  attitude  consequent  upon  the 
discrediting  of  mediaeval  philosophy  and  the  rise  of 
the  new  learning. 

No  product  of  the  middle  ages  is  more  worthy  of 
honor  than  scholasticism  ;  for  no  more  earnest  effort 
has  ever  been  made  to  expound,  illustrate  and 
justify  the  truths  of  the  Christian  faith.  That  great 
attempt  to  wed  theology  and  philosophy  was  at  its 
height  of  attainment  in  the  Summa  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  (1225  ?-i  274).  Under  his  treatment,  philos- 
ophy became  fully  the  handmaid  of  faith.  Philos- 
ophy cannot,  indeed,  he  taught,  reach  unaided  to 
the  demonstration  of  more  than  a  segment  of  the 
circle  of  religious  truth.  Revelation  is  needed. 
But  philosophy  shows  the  reasonableness  of  that 
which  Scripture  and  the  Church  have  taught,  and 
the  futility  of  objections  thereunto.  Uniting  the 
Aristotelian  dialectics,  the  realistic  conception  of 
the  existence  of  genera  and  species,  and  an  ac- 
ceptance of  Scripture  as  the  final  authority,  Aquinas 
defended  and  developed  every  characteristic  doc- 
trine of  the  mediaeval  Church.  In  him  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  papacy,  the  sacrificial  character  of 
the  mass,  purgatory,  works  of  supererogation,  in- 
dulgences, and  the  whole  sacramental  system  came 
to  their  classical  Roman  exposition.  The  depth, 
subtilty  and  religious  fervor  with  which  he  treated 


26  The  Reformation. 

not  merely  these  topics,  but  the  universally  recog- 
nized fundamentals  of  Christian  truth,  have  made  his 
discussions  a  mighty  bulwark  of  the  Roman  con- 
ception of  Christianity  to  the  present  day.  In  his 
own  age  they  gave  the  stamp  of  the  highest  intel- 
lectual authority  to  the  papal  system  and  its  corre- 
lated conceptions. 

But,  before  the  fourteenth  century  had  run  half 
its  course,  criticisms  of  the  Thomist  theology  and 
the  rise  of  the  nominalistic  philosophy  of  William 
of  Occam  (1280-1347)  had  largely  destroyed  belief 
in  that  harmony  between  theology  and  philos- 
ophy which  Aquinas  had  asserted.  Deducing 
knowledge  from  experience,  Occam,  though  him- 
self no  skeptic,  held  most  doctrines  of  the  Christian 
faith  to  be  not  merely  philosophically  unprovable, 
but  contradictory  to  philosophy.  He  denied  any 
scientific  status  to  theology,  and  shut  it  up  almost 
wholly  within  the  realm  of  dogmatic  assertion  as  a 
body  of  truth  based  on  authority,  but  without  philo- 
sophic support.  Occam's  views  spread  rapidly,  and, 
till  the  Reformation,  gained  increasing  sway  over 
those  who  adhered  to  scholastic  methods.  But  they 
produced  two  results.  They  greatly  weakened  the 
reverence  for  mediaeval  theology  as  an  intellectually 
defensible  presentation  of  truth  such  as  Aquinas  had 
taught  that  it  was  ;  and,  by  appealing  to  experi- 
ence, they  opened  a  fresh  avenue  for  the  pursuit  of 
truth — an  avenue  restricted  by  Occam  himself  to 
the  domain  of  philosophy,  but  which  others  would 
use  as  a  road  to  all  investigation. 

In  this  nominalistic  outcome,  scholasticism  missed 


The   New  Learning.  2  J 

sts  original  aim — the  exposition  and  defence  of 
Christian  truth  by  philosophy.  Believing  theology 
philosophically  unsupported  but  dogmatically  au- 
thoritative, scholasticism  fell  into  its  dry  and  hair- 
splitting decline,  debating  for  the  sake  of  dialectic 
gymnastics  rather  than  as  a  means  of  theological 
demonstration.  Its  methods  and  results  came 
largely  to  discredit  themselves,  and  in  so  doing  dis- 
credited mediaeval  theology.  From  the  standpoint 
of  a  cordial  and  hearty  intellectual  acceptance,  the 
papal  system  of  doctrine,  though  externally  appar- 
ently unshaken,  was  decidedly  less  authoritative  at 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  than  it  had  been 
in  the  thirteenth. 

Of  greater  importance  than  the  decline  of  scho- 
lasticism in  modifying  the  thinking  of  men  was  the 
rise  of  the  new  learning.  No  more  apparently  in- 
explicable phenomenon  is  to  be  found  in  history 
than  the  Renascence.  It  seems  as  if  the  human 
mind,  having  reached  a  certain  stage  of  develop- 
ment, opened  to  new  thoughts  and  conceptions  of 
the  world  as  a  plant  bursts  into  flower.  The  liter- 
ature of  ancient  Rome  had  been  famiHar  to  the 
middle  ages,  as  an  examination  of  mediaeval  writ- 
ings will  readily  demonstrate.  But  suddenly  these 
familar  monuments  came  to  have  a  new  significance. 
Men  opened  astonished  eyes  to  a  world  close  at 
hand,  yet  strange  as  any  across  the  sea,  the  world 
of  classical  antiquity.  The  thought  and  life  of  that 
world  fascinated  and  moulded  lives  afresh  with  con- 
ceptions which  the  middle  ages  had  not  known. 

The  new  impulse  appeared  first  of  all,  perhaps,  in 


2S  The  Reformation. 

Dante  (i 265-1 321),  though  in  him  it  was  but  the 
glimmer  of  the  dawn.  The"  Divine  Comedy"  moves 
on  the  theological  lines  marked  out  by  Aquinas,  but 
it  represents  Virgil  as  the  poet's  guide,  and  places 
side  by  side  in  the  lowest  depths  of  hell  the  be- 
trayer of  Christ  and  the  murderers  of  Julius  Caesar. 
In  Petrarch  (1304-74)  the  influence  of  antiquity 
was  much  more  marked,  and  his  age  learned  to  ad- 
mire Virgil  and  Cicero  through  his  enthusiasm. 
Boccaccio  (1313-75)  unravelled  for  his  time  the  in- 
tricacies of  classical  mythology.  By  the  beginning 
of  the  fifteenth  century  the  disciples  of  the  new 
learning  in  Italy  were  no  longer  isolated  individuals, 
but  whole  schools,  Greek,  taught  at  Florence  and 
elsewhere  from  1396  onward  by  Chrysoloras,  was 
almost  as  vigorously  cultivated  as  Latin  literature. 
At  Florence,  at  Naples,  and  soon  at  Rome,  the  new 
learning  found  powerful  support.  Plato  was  once 
more  a  living  force  in  philosophy  through  the  teach- 
ings of  Bessarion  and  Gemistos  Platon  ;  and  his  in- 
fluence was  propagated  by  Ficino  (1433-99)  and  the 
Florentine  Academy.  The  Councils  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  at  Constance  (1414-18)  and  Basel 
(1431-49)  stimulated  the  movement  by  bringing  the 
transalpine  prelates,  among  whom  the  fire  of  the 
new  learning  had  not  yet  kindled,  in  contact  with 
the  freshly  awakened  intellectual  life  of  Italy,  where 
the  study  of  ancient  literature  was  furthered  by 
intercourse  with  the  Greeks  at  the  Council  of  Fer- 
rara  and  Florence  (1438-39).  And  the  new  learn- 
ing was  given  wings  by  the  discovery  of  printing 
about  1450 — an  invention  that  shared  with  the 
many  what  had  been  the  property  of  the  few. 


The  New  Learning.  29 


Contemporaneously  with  the  revived  interest  in 
letters,  art  took  on  a  new  vitality  under  the  influence 
of  classic  models  ;  and  from  Niccolo  Pisano  (1206?- 
1278)  and  Giotto  (i 276-1 336),  the  development  was 
rapid  to  the  full  flowering  of  Italian  art  in  the  works 
of  Perugino  (1446- 1524),  Leonardo  da  Vinci  (1452- 
15 19),  Raphael  (1483-1520),  and  Michael  Angelo 
(1475-1564).  Their  skill  was  largely  enlisted  in  the 
service  of  the  Church,  but  their  artistic  ideals  came 
far  more  from  the  remains  of  pagan  antiquity  than 
from  the  conceptions  of  the  middle  ages. 

Transplanted  beyond  the  Alps,  the  new  learning 
found  welcome  in  all  the  countries  of  western  Europe 
during  the  half  century  that  preceded  the  Reforma- 
tion. In  Germany  it  intrenched  itself  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Heidelberg,  where  Rudolph  Agricola 
taught  till  his  death  in  1485.  The  University  of 
Erfurt  also  gave  it  a  home.  It  found  a  conspicuous 
representative  in  Reuchlin  (145  5-1 522),  who  gave  to 
German  scholars  a  Latin  dictionary,  made  easier  the 
path  to  Greek  literature  by  a  grammar,  and  by  a 
similar  service  unlocked  the  treasures  of  the  Hebrew 
tongue  to  the  understanding  of  learned  Europe 
(1506).  Of  Reuchlin's  pupil  and  grand-nephew, 
Melanchthon,  there  will  be  abundant  occasion  to 
speak  in  connection  with  the  Reformation.  By  1 500 
the  new  learning  had  spread  widely  in  Germany. 
Its  adherents  were  a  compact,  mutually  supporting 
band  of  sympathizers,  and  its  departure  from  the 
older  churchly  ideals  was  very  marked.  In  England, 
Colet  (1466-15 19)  and  More  (1478-1535)  attacked 
scholasticism,  encouraged  the  study  of  Greek  at  the 


30  The  Reformation. 

universities,  and  sought  a  broad  and  tolerant  ideal 
of  the  Church.  A  similar  spirit  appeared  in  France 
in  Bud6  (1467-1540),  the  librarian  of  Francis  I.;  and 
in  Le  F^vre  of  Etaples  (1455  ?-i536).  In  Spain  the 
new  learning  received  hearty  support  from  Ximenes 
(1436-15 17),  the  founder  of  the  University  of  Alcala, 
and  from  Antonio  de  Lebrija  (1442-1522),  professor 
of  classical  literature  at  Alcald  and  Salamanca.  All 
Europe  might  be  said  to  claim  as  its  citizen  the 
greatest  of  the  humanists,  Erasmus  (i467?-i536). 
No  man  of  his  age  had  so  brilliant  a  reputation  in 
the  realm  of  letters.  None  had  greater  influence  in 
moulding  scholarly  opinion.  All  that  he  touched 
upon  was  handled  in  a  style  that  sparkled  with  wit 
beyond  that  of  any  other  writer  of  his  generation, 
with  an  erudition  that  won  him  the  admiration  of 
scholars,  and  with  a  wisdom  that  made  him  well- 
nigh  the  oracle  of  the  humanists  of  the  first  third  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 

The  humanistic  movement  reached  its  highest  in- 
tensity in  Italy,  the  land  of  its  birth.  There  its 
more  ardent  disciples  sought  to  revive  the  life,  as 
well  as  the  thought,  of  pagan  antiquity,  in  its  vices 
as  well  as  in  its  virtues.  Even  where,  as  in  the  case 
of  its  less  extreme  devotees  among  the  high  clergy 
of  the  peninsula.  Christian  thought  still  held  sway, 
it  produced  a  strange  mixture  of  Christian  concep- 
tions with  ideas  borrowed  from  the  philosophy  and 
literature  of  classic  heathenism.  In  g-eneral.  the 
Italian  humanists  turned  aside  from  any  vital  con- 
cern for  Christian  doctrine  or  any  strenuous  at- 
tempts to  reform  the  corruptions  of  the  Church. 


The  New  Learning.  31 

They  did  not  publicly  quarrel  with  Christianity,  but 
their  interests  centred  in  an  antagonistic  range  of 
thought.  But  north  of  the  Alps  humanism  seldom 
wore  so  extremely  paganizing  a  garb  ;  and  the  bet- 
terment of  the  Church  was  ardently  desired  by  many 
of  the  greater  champions  of  the  new  learning.  Men 
like  Colet  and  More  in  England,  Wesel,  Agricola, 
and  Reuchlin  in  Germany,  or  Le  Fevre  in  France, 
earnestly  sought  to  give  to  the  Church  a  broader, 
more  enlightened  and  more  moral  body  of  clergy. 
They  opposed  mediaeval  superstitions  and  degener- 
ate monasticism.  Above  all,  they  directed  men  to 
the  study  of  the  sources  of  Christian  truth.  The 
same  spirit  which  led  them  to  go  back  of  the  medi- 
aeval Latin  translations  and  paraphrases  of  Aristotle 
to  the  very  words  of  the  Greek  philosopher,  and  to 
study  afresh  his  great  compeer,  Plato,  urged  them 
to  turn  from  the  mediaeval  presentations  of  Christi- 
anity to  the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  the  delineations 
of  Paul  and  of  the  Evangelists.  The  sources  of 
Christianity  acquired  a  new  significance  under  the 
teachings  of  humanism  ;  and  the  services  of  human- 
ism to  renewed  investigation  of  Christian  truth  are 
well  typified  in  the  endeavors  of  two  most  dissimilar 
disciples  of  the  new  learning,  Erasmus  and  Ximenes, 
to  place  the  New  Testament  in  its  original  Greek  in 
the  hands  of  sfliolars.  To  the  one,  Ximenes,  is  due 
the  credit  of  first  printing  the  volume  in  his  mon- 
umental "  Complutensian  Polyglot"  (1514-17), 
though  its  publication  was  delayed  till  1520  ;  to  the 
other,  Erasmus,  belongs  the  distinction  of  first 
placing  the  printed  Greek  text  in  the  reach   of  all 


32  The  Reformation. 

who  cared  to  purchase  it  by  his  edition  of  1516. 
The  revival  of  learning  was  not  the  Reformation,  it 
had  too  little  sense  of  the  primacy  of  spiritual  things 
to  be  that ;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  its 
spirit  of  inquiry  made  the  Reformation  possible. 

Like  the  new  learning  in  their  broadening  effect 
upon  the  mental  horizon,  though  even  less  readily 
measurable  in  their  results,  were  the  brilliant  suc- 
cession of  geographical  discoveries  which  distin- 
guished the  closing  years  of  the  fifteenth  century 
and  the  opening  decades  of  the  sixteenth.  Medi- 
aeval Europe  had  faced  eastward.  The  routes  of 
commerce  had  led  from  Constantinople  and  from 
Egypt  to  Italy,  whose  northern  cities  were  the  fac- 
tories and  the  distributing  centres  of  the  chief 
trade  of  Christendom.  But  for  two  centuries  at  </ 
least  before  the  Reformation  the  remoter  com- 
merce with  the  Orient,  dependent  on  the  caravans 
of  Syria  and  the  vessels  of  the  Red  Sea,  had  been 
growing  more  difficult.  Christian  Europe  was  di- 
minishing in  territorial  extent  before  the  march 
of  the  Turks,  whose  capture  of  Constantinople,  in 
1453,  was  but  the  most  dramatic  episode  of  two 
centuries  and  a  quarter  of  victorious  advance  which 
carried  the  Turkish  sovereignty  to  the  eastern  shores 
of  the  Adriatic  and  across  the  continent  of  Europe 
nearly  half  the  distance  from  the  Bosphorus  to  the 
Straits  of  Dover.  Commercial  enterprise  was  thus 
limited  in  its  former  range  of  activity,  for  wherever 
the  Turk  has  gone  trade  has  languished. 

To   the    desire   to  find  a  route  to  the  East  with 
which    the    Turk  could   not   interfere   the   world- 


The  Discoveries. 


changing  discoveries  were  due.  This  task,  under- 
taken and  successfully  accomplished  by  the  sailors 
of  the  Spanish  peninsula,  robbed  Italy  of  its  com- 
mercial supremacy,  and  reversed  the  direction  in 
which  Europe  may  be  said  commercially  to  face. 
The  solution  of  the  problem  was  not  the  result  of 
chance.  From  the  beginnings  of  the  systematic  ex- 
ploration of  the  African  coast  under  the  impulse  of 
Prince  Henry  the  navigator,  in  141 8,  sixty-nine 
years  of  persistent  effort  elapsed  before  the  Por- 
tuguese voyagers,  led  by  Bartholomew  Diaz,  reached 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  in  1487,  and  eighty  years 
before  a  Portuguese  fleet  commanded  by  Vasco  da 
Gama  completed  the  long  endeavor  by  its  arrival  in 
a  harbor  of  southern  India  in  1498. 

But,  before  the  patient  explorations  of  the  Por- 
tuguese had  thus  been  crowned  with  success,  a  yet 
more  brilliant  series  of  discoveries  had  been  inau- 
gurated as  the  direct  consequence  of  attempts  to 
solve  the  problem  to  which  the  Portuguese  navi- 
gators had  addressed  themselves.  Believing  that 
India  might  be  reached  by  sailing  westward  over  a 
shorter  route  than  any  that  might  be  found  around 
Africa,  Columbus  unwittingly  discovered  the  out- 
lying islands  of  a  new  continent  in  1492 — a  discovery 
which  excited  almost  as  much  interest  in  other  coun- 
tries of  Europe  as  in  Spain  itself.  The  next  year, 
1493,  saw  the  beginnings  of  Spanish  colonization  in 
the  West  Indian  Islands.  Discovery  followed  dis- 
covery. The  Pacific  was  reached  by  Balboa  in 
1 5 13,  and  the  globular  form  of  our  planet  demon- 
strated by  Magellan's   voyage    between    15 19   and 


34  The  Reformation. 

1522.  The  years  which  witnessed  Magellan's 
memorable  undertaking  beheld  the  conquest  of 
Mexico  by  Cortez,  and  1531-32  saw  the  success- 
ful inroad  of  Spanish  adventurers  into  Peru.  Not 
only  were  the  possessions  of  the  Spanish  crown 
greatly  extended,  but  the  Spanish  treasury  had 
poured  into  it,  temporarily  at  least,  an  income 
such  as  no  European  government  of  the  middle 
ages,  save  possibly  that  of  the  pope,  had  ever 
conceived  possible.  No  generation  in  history  had 
crowded  into  its  experience  so  many  geographical 
discoveries  of  far-reaching  significance,  saw  pre- 
vious barriers  to  knowledge  of  the  world  so  generally 
thrown  down,  or  was  so  stirred  in  its  imagination  by 
romantic  adventure,  as  that  which  followed  the  first 
voyage  of  Columbus.  Old  limitations  to  geograph- 
ical knowledge  crumbled  away.  The  mediaeval  con- 
ception of  the  flatness  of  the  earth  proved  as  base- 
less as  the  Aristotelian  notion  that  nothing  could 
live  in  the  tropics,  or  the  popular  superstition  that 
the  western  Atlantic  was  a  sea  of  darkness. 

It  would,  indeed,  be  rash  to  afifirm  that  this  tre- 
mendous enlargement  of  geographical  knowledge 
had  any  direct  religious  significance  ;  and  even  more 
venturesome  to  assert  that  it  tended,  of  itself,  to 
promote  the  Protestant  Reformation.  The  his- 
tories of  Spain  and  Portugal  are  a  refutation  of  such 
a  claim.  But  it  undoubtedly  increased  the  feeling 
that  the  age  stood  on  the  eve  of  great  changes,  that 
the  old  was  passing  away,  and  it  made  thousands 
more  ready  to  accept  the  new  in  other  realms  than 
those  of  terrestrial  discovery.     In  this   sense  the 


The  Discoveries.  35 

voyages  and  explorations  probably  awoke  a  feeling 
of  expectation  in  the  mass  of  the  population  of 
Christendom  more  widely  than  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing. That  moved  the  few  intensely,  the  discoveries 
really,  though  vaguely,  affected  the  many. 

While  new  political  and  intellectual  forces  were 
thus  arising  with  which  the  papacy  would  have  to 
contend  were  it  to  retain  its  ancient  supremacy,  the 
course  of  spiritual  movements  within  and  without 
the  Church  was  such  as  to  show  with  equal  clear- 
ness that  the  conditions  which  had  been  developed 
in  the  middle  ages  were  likely  to  be  modified  pro- 
foundly. These  movements  were  diverse  in  ten- 
dency ;  but,  whether  reactionary  or  revolutionary, 
they  revealed  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing  state 
of  the  Church. 

Most  conservative  and  most  widely  supported  of 
any  of  these  attempts  at  spiritual  improvement  dur- 
ing the  century  and  a  quarter  preceding  the  German 
Reformation  had  been  the  effort  to  alter  the  papacy 
from  an  absolute  to  a  constitutional  monarchy, 
which  grew  out  of  the  evils  of  the  schism  and  re- 
sulted in  the  councils  of  Pisa  (1409),  Constance 
(1414-18),  and  Basel  (1431-49).  The  theologians  of 
the  Galilean  school,  d'Ailli,  Gerson,  C16manges  and 
their  associates,  while  holding  to  the  strictest  type 
of  Catholic  doctrinal  orthodoxy  regarding  the  way 
of  salvation,  afifirmed  a  distinction  between  the 
Universal  Church,  of  which  Christ  is  the  head,  and 
the  Roman  Church,  whose  head  is  the  pope,  the 
vicar  of  Christ.  This  thought  did  not  lead  them, 
as  it  might  logically  have  done,  to  a  full  discrimina- 


J 


6  The   Reformation. 


tion  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible  Church. 
But,  while  they  insisted  that  the  papacy  was  of 
divine  appointment,  it  led  them  to  maintain  that  a 
general  council  representing  the  Universal  Church 
had  power  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  pope,  to  limit 
his  acts,  to  depose  him  if  unworthy,  and  to  give 
laws  for  ecclesiastical  administration.  In  the  might 
of  this  assertion  of  superiority  of  a  general  council 
over  the  pope — an  assertion  that  had  been  gaining 
support  since  its  promulgation  by  Marsilius  of 
Padua  in  1324 — the  Council  of  Constance  healed  the 
schism  ;  and  its  leaders  would  gladly  have  effected 
a  moral  purification  of  the  Church  had  not  greed, 
jealousy,  and  the  intrenched  power  of  vested  rights 
made  any  substantial  betterment  "in  head  and 
members"  by  conciliar  agency  impossible. 

This  mismanagement,  partisanship,  and  inef- 
ficiency of  the  councils  themselves,  especially  of 
that  of  Basel,  led  to  a  reaction  in  favor  of  the  papal 
claims  to  supremacy  ;  but  the  renewed  acquiescence 
in  papal  authority  was  not  due  to  a  revived  sense  of 
the  rightfulness  of  the  papal  assertions  so  much  as 
to  an  inability  to  find  anything  better  in  the  coun- 
cils. The  conciliar  movement  in  its  utmost  antag- 
onism to  the  popes  of  the  schism  never  exceeded 
the  bounds  of  Catholic  orthodoxy.  Its  leaders  were 
no  forerunners  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation.  But 
its  ultimate  influence  was  to  help  forward  the 
cause  of  reform  by  demonstrating  the  difificulty  of 
a  regeneration  of  the  papal  system  from  within,  by 
stimulating  the  desire  for  the  moral  betterment  of 
the  clergy,  and  by  fixing  in  the  minds  of  thousands 


Mar  Slims  of  Padua.  37 

the  thought,  destined  to  bear  much  fruit  in  the  early 
history  of  the  German  Reformation,  that  there  ex- 
isted in  a  general  council  of  the  Church,  even  if  in 
abeyance,  an  authority  superior  to  the  pope,  which 
might  be  invoked  if  the  state  of  the  Church  became 
sufificiently  exigent. 

Much  more  radical  in  their  breach  with  the  papal 
system  than  the  divines  of  the  reforming  councils, 
yet  standing  in  many  respects  on  mediaeval  ground 
rather  than  that  which  the  German  Reformation 
was  to  occupy,  were  a  series  of  brilliant  opponents 
of  papal  claims,  from  Marsilius  of  Padua  to  John 
Huss. 

Marsilius  (c.  1270-1342?),  the  keenest-sighted  of 
these  antagonists  of  hierarchical  usurpation,  pre- 
sented ideas  in  his  Defensor  Pads,  written  at  Paris 
in  1324,  which  seem  almost  a  counterpart  of  modern 
thought.  Applying  to  the  Church  his  conception 
of  the  State  as  finding  its  ultimate  authority  in  the 
will  of  the  people,  whose  responsible  executive  rep- 
resentatives all  rulers  are,  he  maintained  that  the 
designation  "  Church  "  is  not  to  be  confined  to  any 
clerical  order,  but  belongs  to  the  whole  body  of 
Christian  believers,  clergy  and  laymen,  who  all 
have  equal  right  to  the  title  ecclesiastics.  Like  the 
people  in  civil  affairs,  the  Church — that  is,  the  com- 
munity of  believers — is  superior  to  any  of  its  officers. 
Its  doctrinal  standard  is  the  Bible.  Its  highest 
authority  is  a  general  council,  representative  of 
clergy  and  laymen.  The  Scriptures  teach,  Marsil- 
ius held,  that  all  clergy  are  equal ;  and  such  prom- 
inence as  has  come  to  be  associated  with  popes  an^ 


38  The  Reformation, 

bishops,  though  perhaps  convenient,  is  of  human 
origin.  Clergy  are  to  be  appointed  by  the  whole 
body  of  believers  of  the  districts  which  they  serve, 
acting  directly  or  by  the  executive  representatives 
of  those  districts — that  is,  by  the  magistrates,  princes 
and  kings.  The  same  authorities  can  remove  them 
if  unworthy.  To  the  communities,  through  their 
rulers,  every  clergyman  is  amenable  for  breaches  of 
law.  He  stands  on  the  same  footing  as  a  layman 
before  the  civil  courts,  which  are  the  only  rightful 
courts.  No  clergyman  has  the  right  to  judge,  to 
administer  civil  affairs,  or  to  enforce  excommunica- 
tion by  civil  penalties  ;  nor  does  the  excommuni- 
cation of  the  priest  really  condemn  spiritually  unless 
it  coincides  with  the  judgment  of  God,  who  knows 
the  secrets  of  the  heart.  The  civil  magistrate  him- 
self has  no  power  to  punish  heresy  save  when  dan- 
gerous to  the  civil  peace  of  the  community.  Christ 
alone  judges  the  heretic. 

Such  a  work  is  a  marvel  for  its  age.  It  antici- 
pates much  that  characterized  the  Protestant 
Reformation — the  universal  priesthood  of  believers, 
the  sole  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  the  human 
origin  of  the  papacy,  the  power  of  rulers  to  control 
ecclesiastical  appointments.  But  it  goes  much 
beyond  the  Reformation  age  in  its  assertions  of  the 
power  of  the  people  and  of  religious  liberty.  No 
wonder  Clement  VI.  declared,  in  1343,  that  he  "had 
never  read  a  worse  heretic  than  this  Marsilius  ;"  or 
that  the  dawn  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  saw 
the  publication  of  editions  and  translations  of  the 
work.      Had    Marsilius   been    a   man    of    kindling 


William  of  Occam.  39 

religious  zeal,  instead  of  an  unemotional,  somewhat 
unspiritual  writer,  he  might  perhaps  have  founded  a 
new  branch  of  the  Church,  though  he  was  probably 
too  far  in  advance  of  his  age  to  have  secured  many 
followers  in  any  event.  But,  as  it  was,  he  sowed 
seed  for  a  later  harvest. 

Some  of  these  thoughts  of  the  ItaHan  pubHcist 
just  considered  were  shared  by  his  English-born  asso- 
ciate at  the  University  of  Paris  and  companion  of  his 
exile  to  the  court  of  Louis  of  Bavaria,  the  eminent 
nominalistic  philosopher,  WiUiam  of  Occam  (1280?- 
1347).  The  rejection  as  a  heretical  claim  by  Pope 
John  XXII.,  in  1322,  of  the  assertion  of  the  stricter 
Franciscans  that  Christ  and  the  Apostles  exercised 
no  property  rights  roused  the  opposition  of  Occam 
to  the  abuses  of  the  papal  system,  since  he  was  not 
only  an  officer  of  the  Franciscan  order,  but  a  be- 
liever in  "  evangelical  poverty."  Without  wholly 
rejecting  the  papacy,  he  finds  its  interferences  with 
the  State,  its  pretensions  to  interpret  Christian 
doctrine,  its  pomp  and  pride,  inconsistent  with  the 
Scriptures,  wherein  he  discovers  the  sole  final 
authority.  Truth  may  have  its  lodgment  in  the 
heart  of  the  humblest  Christian  believer  when 
absent  from  the  hierarchy.  The  Christian  com- 
munity, by  its  rulers  and  its  councils,  may  assert  its 
rights  against  hierarchical  interference.  Occam 
had  none  of  the  clearness  of  vision  which  marked 
Marsilius,  but  because  he  was  not  so  far  beyond  his 
age  as  the  writer  of  the  Defensor  Pads,  he  influenced 
it  even  more,  and  his  views  on  doctrinal  and  admin- 
istrative questions  had  a  moulding  power  on  others 


40  The  Reformation. 


to  some  extent  till  the  Reformation.     Luther  him- 
self was  affected  by  him. 

Not  so  clear  a  thinker  as  Marsilius,  but  of  a  much 
intenser  religious  nature,  was  the  English  reformer, 
John  Wiclif  (i320?-i384).  Wiclif's  criticism  of  the 
existing  errors  of  the  Church  and  his  development 
of  his  own  views  were  gradual  processes.  Long  a 
student  and  professor  at  Oxford,  where  he  ranked 
as  the  ablest  schoolman  of  his  day,  patriotic  oppo- 
sition to  papal  encroachments  in  England  led  him, 
as  early  as  1366,  to  deny  the  rights  of  temporal 
rule,  taxation  and  amassing  of  property  to  the 
papacy,  the  prelates  and  the  monks  quite  in  the 
spirit  of  Occam's  insistence  on  "  evangelical 
poverty."  To  his  thinking,  the  true  Church  is  the 
invisible  number  of  the  predestinate,  and,  as  such, 
may  be  distinguished  from  the  mixed  Church  which 
is  visible  in  this  world.  Yet  this  thought,  so  criti- 
cally applied  by  Wiclif  and  by  Huss  to  the  papacy, 
was  not  original  with  the  English  theologian  ;  it 
had  been  presented  by  many  mediaeval  writers.  Of 
the  true  Church,  Wiclif  affirmed,  the  Scriptures  are 
the  fundamental  law  ;  though  at  first  he  was  in- 
cHned  to  give  to  tradition  an  interpretive  authority 
which  he  later  denied. 

But  persecution  and  the  melancholy  spectacle  of 
two  rival  popes  each  claiming  to  be  the  vicar  of 
Christ  led  Wiclif,  from  1378  onward,  to  yet  sharper 
criticisms.  The  only  head  of  the  Church  he  now 
declared  is  Christ,  The  pope,  unless  he  be  one  of 
the  predestinate  who  rule  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Gospel,  is  the  vicar  of  Antichrist,  and,  further,  all 


John'  Wiclif.  41 

particular  bodies  and  associations  in  the  one 
Church,  like  the  power-grasping  hierarchy,  or  the 
monks  and  friars  who  claimed  special  religious 
sanctity,  are  without  scriptural  warrant  —  they 
divide  the  one  flock  of  Christ.  The  centre  and 
source  of  priestly  claim  to  superiority  over  the  lay- 
man is  in  the  asserted  power  to  effect  the  Eucharis- 
tic  miracle.  Hence  Wiclif  was  led  to  examine  this 
vital  tenet  of  the  mediaeval  Church  in  the  light  of 
Scripture  and  of  reason,  and,  in  1381,  startled  Eng- 
land with  the  declaration  that  the  doctrine  of  tran- 
substantiation  was  an  error  to  be  condemned.  He 
now  denied  the  infallibility  of  the  Roman  Church 
in  matters  of  faith,  rejected  the  necessity  of  auricu- 
lar confession,  criticised  the  doctrines  of  purgatory, 
pilgrimages,  worship  of  saints  and  veneration  of 
relics  as  unscriptural,  and  maintained  that  the  Bible 
reveals  no  other  ofHcers  than  priests  and  deacons  as 
necessary  for  the  Church. 

Wiclif  was  much  more,  however,  than  a  theoretic 
reformer.  He  was  sincerely  desirous  of  advancing 
the  Kingdom  of  God  in  England.  »  Convinced  of  the 
necessity  of  supplementing  the  Latin  services  of 
what  he  deemed  a  largely  unworthy  priesthood  by 
preaching  in  the  English  tongue,  he  sent  forth,  after 
1378,  what  were  called  "poor  priests" — that  is, 
unbeneficed  preachers — who  proclaimed  the  Gospel 
in  churches,  streets  or  market-places  as  they  had 
opportunity.  To  provide  them  with  a  message,  and 
to  put  the  knowledge  of  what  he  deemed  the  only 
fundamental  law  of  the  Church  within  the  reach  of 
laity  as  well  as  of  clergy,  he  and  his  friends  trans- 


42  The  Refor7natio7i. 


lated  the  Bible  from  the  Vulgate,  the  first  edition 
being  completed  in  1382.  This  translation  is  as  im- 
portant in  the  history  of  the  English  language  as  of 
English  religious  life  ;  and,  in  spite  of  rigid  attempts 
at  its  suppression,  it  made  England  the  most  Bible- 
reading  country  of  Christendom  during  the  century 
that  preceded  the  Reformation. 

Yet,  though  widely  sympathized  in  by  many  of 
influence  and  position,  WicHf's  movement  had  little 
organized  permanency.  Pressed  upon  by  the  stat- 
ute de  hcerctico  combiirendo  of  1401,  as  a  party  of 
political  influence  the  Wiclifites  had  little  corporate 
significance  after  the  execution  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle 
in  1417.  But  the  number  of  copiesofWiclif's  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible  and  of  his  works  which  have  come 
down  to  our  time  shows  that  his  movement  had 
vitality  ;  and  it  can  be  no  accident  that,  in  general, 
those  sections  of  England  which  most  felt  his  in- 
fluence were  readiest  to  welcome  the  Protestant 
Reformation  a  century  and  a  half  after  his  death. 

Wiclif's  influence  extended  beyond  the  bounds 
of  England,  also,  in  a  remarkable  way.  Bohemia, 
thanks  to  the  ready  interchange  of  students  between 
universities,  when  Latin  was  the  language  of  in- 
struction, and  thanks,  also,  to  the  marriage  of  Rich- 
ard II.  of  England  to  a  Bohemian  princess  in  1382, 
was  brought  into  acquaintance  with  Wiclif's  writings 
as  early  certainly  as  1398.  The  land  had  been  pre- 
pared by  the  labors  of  preachers  and  moral  re- 
formers, such  as  Conrad  of  Waldhausen  (d.  1369), 
Milicz  of  Kremsier  (d.  1374),  and  Matthias  of  Janow 
(d.  1394) ;  and  Bohemian  national  feeling  was  strong 


John  Hiiss.  43 

then  as  it  is  to-day.  Not  a  little  of  the  speedy 
popularity  of  Wiclif's  works  was  undoubtedly  due 
to  their  sturdy  assertion  of  national  independence 
against  foreign  encroachment,  even  that  of  the  pope  ; 
and,  in  the  University  of  Prague,  the  fact  that  the 
Germans  were  nominalists  in  the  philosophical  dis- 
cussions of  the, day  led  the  Bohemian  students  to 
search  the  writings  of  Wiclif,  the  most  eminent 
realist  of  his  time,  for  answers  to  the  German  po- 
sition. 

Conspicuous  among  the  younger  lecturers  at  the 
University  of  Prague  at  the  time  of  the  introduction 
of  Wiclif's  writings  into  Bohemia  was  John  Huss 
(I369?-I4I5),  a  man  of  strenuous  Christian  faith,  sim- 
ple-minded devotion  to  truth  as  he  conceived  it, 
and  great  influence  as  a  preacher  and  mover  of  men. 
Under  the  persuasive  presentations  of  Huss,  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  people  of  Prague  adopted  Wic- 
lifite  views  ;  and  his  condemnation  by  the  Council 
of  Constance  and  martyrdom  made  him  a  Bohemian 
national  hero.  Yet  Huss  added  nothing  to  WicHf's 
attack  on  the  existing  order  of  churchly  things,  save 
that  he  advocated  the  administration  of  the  com- 
munion in  both  bread  and  wine  to  the  laity.  Indeed, 
in  many  points  Huss  was  not  as  radical  as  Wiclif. 
Unlike  the  English  theologian,  he  had  no  quarrel, 
for  instance,  with  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation. 
But  he  had  an  opportunity  not  given  to  any  of  the 
opponents  of  the  papacy  just  considered  to  witness 
to  the  sanctity  of  conscientious  private  judgment. 
The  Council  of  Constance  did  not  wish  to  have  Huss 
burned.     Its  members  stood  ready  to  accept  a  very 


44  The  Reformation. 

vague  affirmation  of  general  submission  to  the  in- 
fallible wisdom  of  the  Church.  But  Huss  was  of 
the  stuff  of  which  heroes  are  made.  He  would  play 
no  tricks  with  his  conscience,  and  he  steadfastly  re- 
fused any  compromise  which  involved  the  submission 
of  his  convictions  of  truth  to  the  overruling  of  eccle- 
siastical authority.  In  his  stand  before  the  Council 
of  Constance,  as  in  that  of  Luther  before  the  Reichs- 
tag of  Worms  more  than  a  hundred  years  later,  two 
antagonistic  theories  of  the  use  of  the  divinely  im- 
planted faculties  of  the  mind  were  brought  into  col- 
lision ;  nor  has  their  conflict  yet  ceased.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  Council — that  the  cheerful  submission  of 
individual  opinion  to  the  judgment  of  the  Church  is 
a  Christian  duty — is  the  teaching  of  the  Roman 
communion  to-day  ;  the  assertion  of  Huss  of  re- 
sponsibility to  God  for  the  full  and  unfettered  use 
of  personal  judgment  is  that  of  Protestantism  to  this 
hour. 

Yet  none  of  the  thinkers  who  have  just  been  con- 
sidered, largely  as  they  anticipated  much  that  char- 
acterized the  Protestant  Reformation,  broke  thor- 
oughly with  the  mediaeval  conceptions  of  the  way 
of  salvation,  and  therefore  they  stood  related  on  this 
vital  point  rather  to  the  mediaeval  Church  than  to 
Protestantism.  They  were  not  the  fathers  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation  ;  but  they  show  how  deep 
was  the  desire  for  some  sort  of  a  Reformation 
of  the  existing  state  of  the  Church,  and  how 
unsatisfactory  were  its  spiritual  condition  and 
its  claims  to  the  more  radical  thinkers  of  the  four- 
teenth century. 


The  Mystics.  45 

Beside  these  more  intellectual  and  systematic 
criticisms  of  the  churchly  conceptions  which  the 
papal  system  represented,  the  middle  ages  wit- 
nessed many  strivings  within  and  without  the 
Church  after  a  type  of  piety  unlike  the  semi-legal- 
istic, sacramentarian,  penetential  and  corporate 
form  that  was  most  markedly  characteristic  of  the 
Roman  point  of  view.  Anselm  (1033-1 109),  and  even 
more  Bernhard  (1090-1 153),  though  strict  exponents 
of  most  of  the  features  of  the  mediaeval  conception 
of  Christianity,  yet  so  asserted  the  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication by  faith  as  to  stand  almost  on  what  was  to 
be  later  the  Protestant  ground  in  this  matter ;  and 
Bernhard  profoundly  influenced  Luther  in  the  re- 
former's formative  years. 

Much  less  in  the  circle  of  the  thoughts  of  the  later 
Protestant  Reformation  yet  contributing  to  the  im- 
pulses that  were  to  produce  it  were  the  Dominican 
mystics,  especially  those  of  the  Rhine  country. 
Mediaeval  in  their  insistence  on  asceticism  and  con- 
templation as  the  fundamental  duties  of  the  Chris- 
tian life,  men  like  Tauler  of  Strassburg  (c.  1300- 
61),  or  the  author  of  the  German  Theology,  or 
John  of  Ruysbroek  (i 293-1 381),  nevertheless  laid 
comparatively  little  weight  on  the  ceremonials  of 
the  Church,  and  emphasized  the  primary  value  of  a 
new  attitude  of  the  soul  toward  God  and  of  a  new 
spiritual  birth.  Through  the  "  Friends  of  God" 
and  the  ' '  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life  "these  views 
were  widely  spread  among  the  laity  of  Germany, 
Switzerland  and  the  Netherlands  before  the  close  of 
the  fourteenth  century. 


46  The  Reforvtatioii. 

Even  mediaeval  monasticism  in  its  later  develop- 
ments under  the  impulse  that  came  out  from  Dom- 
inic and  Francis,  though  diametrically  opposed  to 
Protestantism  in  its  theory  of  the  method  of  salva- 
tion, yet  prepared  the  way  by  its  popular  preaching 
for  the  consideration  of  the  aspects  of  Christian 
truth  which  the  Protestant  Reformation  was  to 
bring  into  debate.  That  preaching  centred  about 
the  forgiveness  of  sins,  thus  involuntarily  raising  in 
the  popular  mind  the  question  of  the  efificacy  of 
the  solution  of  this  problem  of  Christian  experi- 
ence offered  by  the  mediaeval  Church.  Preaching, 
though  sadly  neglected  by  the  beneficed  clergy,  un- 
doubtedly increased  in  prevalence  and  popular 
effectiveness  during  the  two  centuries  that  pre- 
ceded the  Reformation,  and  the  very  zeal  with 
which  pilgrimages  were  pursued,  shrines  sought, 
and  indulgences  purchased  in  fifteenth  century 
Germany,  at  the  time  of  the  actual  beginning  of 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  shows  the  growing  in- 
terest of  the  laity  in  the  problems  with  which  the 
Reformation  in  Germany  was  first  to  be  occupied. 
And  an  even  more  significant  evidence  of  the  stir- 
rings of  a  new  spirit  of  religious  inquiry  in  the  lands 
which  were  soon  to  be  the  battle-grounds  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation  appears  in  the  printing, 
between  1456  and  15 18,  of  no  less  than  fourteen 
editions  of  the  Bible  in  German  and  four  in  Dutch, 
in  addition  to  at  least  ninety-eight  editions  of  the 
Scriptures  in  Latin.  Certainly  preaching  and  Bible- 
study  had  done  much,  by  the  close  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  at  least  in  Teutonic  lands,  to  pre- 


Various  Influences.  47 

pare  the  laity  for  the  spiritual  revolution  which  was 
to  come. 

Of  the  influence  of  the  anti-Roman  sects  of  the 
middle  ages,  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  Protestant 
Reformation,  it  is  less  easy  to  speak.  The  Cathari 
of  southern.  France,  extremely  threatening  by  the 
year  1200,  had  been  swept  out  of  existence  by  the 
combined  forces  of  Church  and  State  before  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

The  Fraticelli  of  Italy  and  southern  France  ran 
their  violent  course  of  insistence  on  "  evangelical 
poverty,"  and  of  opposition  to  a  papacy  that  would 
not  yield  to  their  views,  in  the  fourteenth  century  ; 
but  their  movement  had  spent  its  force  before  the 
Reformation  age,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the 
Reformation  in  no  other  sense  than  that  of  adding 
to  the  general  sum  of  protest  against  a  corrupt  hi- 
erarchy. Their  own  theory  of  the  way  of  salvation 
was  thoroughly  ascetic  and  mediaeval. 

But  the  Waldenses,  though  at  no  time  apparently 
so  numerous  as  were  the  Cathari  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  or  so  prominently  in  the  public  eye  as  the 
Fraticelli  of  a  hundred  years  later,  were  much  more 
widespread  and  persistent.  Starting  with  Waldo 
of  Lyons,  about  1173,  in  a  simple  desire  to  preach 
the  Gospel  and  to  practise  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  as  the  literal  rule  of  the  Christian  life — a 
desire  not  differentiating  them  essentially  from 
other  warm-hearted  men  in  the  Roman  communion 
of  that  age — they  were  driven  outside  the  Roman 
Church,  not  at  first  as  heretics,  but  as  unwilling  to 
abandon  lay-preaching  at  the  command  of  ecclesias- 


48  The  Reformation. 

tical  superiors.  Once  outside  it,  they  remained  in 
rapidly  increasing  opposition  to  its  prelates  by  rea- 
son of  their  own  conviction  of  the  sole  binding 
authority  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  law  of  the  Christian 
life  and  of  preaching  as  the  first  of  Christian  duties. 
But  they  had  no  sense  of  departure  from  the  gen- 
eral system  of  doctrine  for  which  the  mediaeval 
Church  stood,  nor  did  the  early  French  Waldenses 
at  least  hesitate  to  participate  in  the  sacraments  of 
the  Roman  Church.  They  Avere  not  Protestants. 
Their  theory  of  salvation  was  as  far  removed  as 
possible  from  that  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
alone  which  the  Lutheran  revolution  was  to  empha- 
size. They  found  its  method  in  a  likeness  to  Christ 
which  was  largely  an  imitation  in  externals,  as  in  His 
poverty.  They  discovered  it  in  a  literal  obedience 
to  His  commands  which  led  them  to  deny  the  right- 
fulness of  oaths,  the  propriety  of  any  judicial  form 
of  taking  life,  the  admissibility  of  holding  civil  of- 
fice or  of  participation  in  war  ;  which  sent  them  forth 
preaching  two  by  two,  shod  in  the  sabots  of  the 
French  peasantry,  in  imitation  of  the  sandals  of  the 
early  disciples,  and  even  persuaded  them  that  the 
Lord's  prayer  was  the  sole  permissible  form  of  pub- 
lic petition.  Their  view  of  the  Christian  life  was 
fundamentally  ascetic  ;  they  valued  confession,  celi- 
bacy and  fasting. 

From  this  early  unconsciousness  of  a  fundamental 
breach  with  the  Roman  Church,  hierarchical  opposi- 
tion and  the  pressure  of  the  Inquisition,  as  well  as 
their  acceptance  of  the  Bible  as  the  sole  source  of 
authority,  led  them  rapidly  to  more  definite  antag- 


TJie   Walde7ises.  49 


onism.  By  1260,  the  Waldenses  of  Lombardy  and 
Germany  at  least  had  come  not  only  to  reject  the 
Roman  Church  with  its  statutes  and  observances, 
but  to  deny  as  unwarranted  by  Scripture  the  Ave 
Maria  and  the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  doctrines  of 
transubstantiation,  purgatory,  prayers  for  the 
dead  or  to  saints,  and  indulgences,  while  rejecting 
also  fasting  in  Lent  and  the  observance  of  other 
sacred  days  than  Sunday  and  those  commemorative 
of  the  life  of  the  Lord.  Beyond  these  positions,  the 
Waldenses  made  little,  if  any,  advance  before  the 
Reformation  age  ;  and,  however  the  views  just 
described  may  anticipate  features  of  later  Protest- 
antism, they  did  not  make  their  holders  Protestants 
in  the  Reformation  sense. 

Working  necessarily  in  secret,  it  is  impossible  to 
estimate  the  numbers  or  fully  to  trace  the  diffusion 
of  the  Waldenses,  but  such  glimpses  as  are  obtain- 
able, largely  through  reports  of  their  persecutors, 
show  that  this  hunted  sect  was  very  widespread. 
Beside  their  original  habitat  in  southeastern  France 
and  northern  Italy,  they  were  to  be  found  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  scattered  through 
Germany,  and  in  Austria  and  Switzerland.  They 
seem  to  have  prepared  the  ground,  in  some  meas- 
ure, for  the  Hussite  movement  in  Bohemia,  and  to 
have  united  with  its  more  radical  elements.  Though 
somewhat  abated  in  their  ancient  zeal,  the  Ref- 
ormation found  them  still  existent  ;  and  while  the 
more  conservative  Reformers,  like  Luther  or  Zwin- 
gli,  can  scarce  conceivably  have  gained  anything 
from  them,  it  is  a  debated  question  at  the  present 


50  The  Reformation. 

day  whether  the  more  radical  sects  of  the  Protest- 
ant revolution,  notably  the  Anabaptists,  may  not 
have  been  really  a  fresh  outcropping  of  the  medi- 
aeval anti-Roman  movements  of  which  the  Wal- 
denses  had  been  the  most  influential.  The  claim 
seems,  indeed,  far  from  proved  in  its  entirety  ;  but 
the  similarity  is  considerable  between  these  move- 
ments of  the  ending  centuries  of  the  middle  ages 
and  the  extremer  parties  which  the  Reformation 
developed. 

All  these  fermenting  forces,  political,  intellectual 
and  religious,  were  intensified  as  the  Reformation 
age  approached  by  the  new  spirit  of  individualism 
which  had  many  roots,  but  drew  its  vigor  chiefly, 
perhaps,  from  the  revival  of  learning.  The  middle 
ages  were  corporate  not  alone  in  their  conception  of 
religion,  but  in  all  departments  of  life.  They  were 
the  heyday  of  guilds,  trades-associations,  and 
fraternities.  Students  and  professors  joined  in 
bodies  politic  in  universities  ;  weavers  or  bakers, 
butchers  or  armorers  had  their  own  strictly  guarded 
organizations  in  the  larger  cities  ;  merchants  simi- 
larly combined  in  wide-extended,  self-governing 
corporations.  Individuality  could  not,  indeed,  be 
wholly  suppressed.  The  great  teachers  of  the 
Church,  like  Anselm,  Bernhard  or  Aquinas,  stand 
above  their  fellows  as  a  mediaeval  cathedral  towers 
above  the  low  houses  of  a  city  of  northern  France. 
But  the  mediaeval  life  tended  to  repress  individual 
peculiarities  and  to  absorb  the  personal  in  the  cor- 
porate. To  pass  the  bounds  of  the  social  rank  in 
which   one    was   born    was,    at    least    in    the   lay 


Individualism.  5 1 

world,  very  difficult.  A  notable  illustration  of  the 
mediaeval  repression  of  individual  conspicuity  may 
be  found  in  the  cathedrals  just  mentioned.  Monu- 
ments of  the  highest  architectural  skill,  little  is 
known  of  their  designers,  and  the  artistic  excellence 
of  the  work  has  yielded  in  almost  no  instance  a 
harvest  of  personal  fame. 

But  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  all 
became  different.  Guilds  and  corporations  con- 
tinued, but  they  were  beginning  to  decay.  A 
Fugger  became  a  power  in  the  business  world  ;  a 
Raphael  or  a  Michael  Angelo  stood  forth  sharply 
outlined,  dominant,  personally  forceful  in  the  realm 
of  art  ;  an  Erasmus  was  almost  worshipped  in  the 
republic  of  letters  ;  a  Columbus,  by  the  boldness  of 
a  great  original  conception,  became  the  discoverer 
of  a  new  world  ;  a  Copernicus  revealed  a  new  heaven 
to  incredulous  Europe.  These  men  yet  stand  out 
clear  and  masterful  in  the  retrospect  of  that  age. 
Individual  initiative  and  personal  leadership  were 
then  taking  the  place  of  corporate  association  in 
most  realms  of  thought.  Religion  was  still  guarded 
by  a  wall  of  traditional  interpretation,  buttressed 
by  a  formidable  and  all-pervasive  hierarchical  sys- 
tem, and  an  inquisitorial  repression  of  departures 
from  established  standards.  But,  stirred  as  the 
Church  was  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  by 
a  sense  of  its  own  corruption,  formalism,  and  of  the 
inadequacy  of  its  spiritual  life,  the  new  individual- 
ism was  certain  to  make  itself  powerfully  felt  in 
Christian  thought.  The  existing  state  of  the 
Church  could  not  continue  unmodified.     The  new 


52  The  Reformation. 

forces  touching  it  from  most  diverse  quarters  were 
too  various  and  too  strong  to  be  wholly  resisted. 
Leadership  had  acquired  a  new  significance,  while 
independence  of  thought  was  dawning  as  a  possi- 
bility on  the  minds  of  a  few.  A  Reformation  of 
some  sort  was  inevitable  at  the  opening  of  the 
sixteenth  century  ;  but  was  it  to  be  conservative 
and  reactionary,  or  was  it  to  be  a  revolution  ?  That 
was  the  question  to  which  Europe  was  to  give 
diverse  answers,  and  the  answers  were  permanently 
to  divide  western  Christendom. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   SPANISH   AWAKENING. 

HE  answer  of  humanism,  as  typified,  for 
instance,  in  Erasmus,  to  the  universal 
demand  of  the  opening  sixteenth  century 
for  some  effective  churchly  reform  has 
already  been  indicated.  Educate,  study 
the  sources  of  the  Christian  faith,  purify  the  Church 
from  superstition  and  superstitious  practices,  the 
great  humanist  said  in  effect,  and  the  result  will 
be  a  learned,  sane  and  moral  institution.  It  was 
an  answer  that  profoundly  affected  Europe,  and 
was  to  contribute  to  the  reformatory  efforts  of  those 
who  remained  within  the  communion  of  the  ancient 
Church  as  well  as  of  those  who  separated  from  it. 
Both  in  large  measure  made  it  their  own.  But,  in 
itself,  it  was  an  answer  that  reckoned  far  too  little 
with  the  religious  feelings  of  men  to  make  it 
adequate  to  the  needs  of  the  age.  It  was  too 
largely  an  intellectual  enlightenment  rather  than  a 
religious  renovation.  Something  more  deep-search- 
ing in  its  adaptation  to  the  profound  spiritual  wants 
of  the  human  heart  must  be  found  if  a  reform 
movement  that  would  appeal  to  any  great  part  of 
Christendom  was  to  be  inaugurated. 

53 


54  The  Reformation. 

It  was  but  natural  that  while  the  desire  for  re- 
form was  widespread,  the  attitude  of  much  of 
Europe  regarding  the  form  and  extent  of  improve- 
ment in  churchly  conditions  would  in  any  event  be 
conservative.  The  leaders  of  the  conciliar  move- 
ment of  the  fifteenth  century  had  deemed  it  suf- 
ficient to  attempt  the  amendment  of  the  most 
glaring  abuses  in  the  administration  of  the  Church, 
to  aim  at  the  purification  of  its  discipline,  to  seek 
the  moral  elevation  of  the  papacy,  and  to  limit  the 
extremer  manifestations  of  papal  interference  in 
secular  affairs.  The  new  learning  but  emphasized 
the  desire  for  a  more  competent  and  worthy  clergy 
which  the  councils  of  Constance  and  Basel  had  felt. 
But  these  reformatory  impulses  did  not  imply  any 
wish  to  alter  the  essential  features  of  the  doctrinal 
fabric  which  the  middle  ages  had  erected.  There 
were  no  more  earnest  defenders  of  the  mediaeval 
conceptions  of  Christianity,  no  more  conscientious 
antagonists  of  what  they  deemed  heresy  in  the 
innovations  of  Wiclif  or  Huss,  than  the  fathers  of 
the  fifteenth  century  councils.  And  the  type  of 
reform  that  they  had  sought  continued  to  be  that 
desired  by  a  great  part  of  Europe  throughout  the 
whole  Reformation  age. 

What  the  councils  failed  to  accomplish  it  seemed 
might  be  effected  by  the  rising  national  conscious- 
ness of  Europe.  The  monarchies  that  were  grow- 
ing rapidly  into  power  in  Spain,  in  France  and  in 
England  as  the  fifteenth  century  drew  to  a  close 
were  the  truest  representatives  of  the  new  national 
life,  and  seemed  to  earnest  seekers  for  the  better- 


National  Life.  55 


ment  of  the  Church  to  offer  the  most  hopeful  in- 
struments for  accomplishing  reform.  The  whole 
ecclesiastical  history  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  with  their  schisms  and  councils,  their 
compacts  between  popes  and  kings,  had  emphasized 
the  conception  of  national  churches  as  having  an 
administrative  unity  and  a  kind  of  subordinate 
corporate  independence  within  the  one  Church  of 
which  they  were  parts.  And  as  the  rising  mon- 
archies were  the  expression  of  the  awakening 
national  life  of  France,  England  or  Spain,  so  those 
monarchies  appeared  the  natural  and  efficient 
organs  by  which  the  Christian  peoples  of  those 
lands  could  better  the  state  of  the  particular  por- 
tions of  the  still  undivided  Church  that  were  within 
their  own  borders. 

It  was  in  Spain  that  the  desire  for  a  conservative 
reformation  that  should  involve  no  alteration  in 
doctrine  combined  with  the  fresh  vigor  of  the 
monarchy  in  the  last  two  decades  of  the  fifteenth 
century  to  bring  into  being  a  movement  for  the 
purification  of  the  Church,  which  by  reason  of  its 
superior  intensity  and  power  and  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  destined  to  become  the  pattern  and  inspiration 
of  similar  efforts  elsewhere,  rather  than  by  any 
uniqueness  of  method  or  aim,  deserves  the  name  of 
the  "Spanish  Awakening."  In  general  purpose 
it  did  not  differ  from  many  reformatory  attempts 
which  the  later  middle  ages  had  witnessed  ;  but  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  country  of  its  birth 
and  the  energetic  support  of  the  Spanish  sover- 
eigns gave  it  a  vitality  and  an   influence  which  no 


56  The  Reformation. 

preceding  endeavor,  however  similar,  had  attained. 
First  of  any  reform  movement  of  the  age  to  be 
extensively  efficient,  it  became  the  type  and 
fountain  of  one  of  the  two  great  reformatory  efforts 
that  were  to  struggle  for  the  mastery  of  Europe. 

Certain  salient  traits  of  the  Spanish  character  de- 
termined the  aspect  which  this  betterment  of  the 
Church  assumed,  as  truly  as  certain  peculiarities  of 
Spanish  national  development  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century  gave  to  it  power.  Proud  of  their 
doctrinal  orthodoxy,  which  long  contests  with  Mo- 
hammedanism had  made  a  test  of  patriotism,  in- 
clined, like  all  Latin  nations,  to  view  asceticism  as 
essential  to  the  highest  manifestation  of  the  religious 
life,  and  to  find  the  loftiest  type  of  Christian  attain- 
ment in  the  ecstatic  experiences  possible  to  the  few 
rather  than  in  the  faithful  discharge  of  daily  duties 
within  the  reach  of  the  many,  attached  to  the  medi- 
aeval worship,  to  its  conceptions  of  the  way  of  salva- 
tion, its  protecting  saints,  its  sacred  shrines,  its 
priesthood  and  its  sacraments,  no  reform  of  the 
Church  was  possible  to  the  people  of  Spain  which 
involved  any  alteration  in  its  doctrine  or  essential 
constitution.  Yet  nowhere  else  in  Latin  Europe 
was  the  Church  of  the  closing  fifteenth  century  so 
bound  up  with  the  national  life  or,  on  the  whole,  so 
independent  of  papal  control  as  in  Spain.  Since 
1381,  certainly,  though  not  without  vigorous  and  at 
times  successful  papal  opposition,  the  Castilian  mon- 
archs  had  insisted  that  Spanish  bishoprics  be  filled 
with  Spaniards  and  that  papal  taxes  should  be  lim- 
ited.    Thanks  in  part  to  the  semi-monastic  military 


Spanish  Character.  5  7 


orders,  in  part  also  to  a  kind  of  familiarity  with 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  questions  which  the 
common  contest  with  Mohammedanism  spread 
among  the  people  as  a  whole,  the  line  between 
clergy  and  laity  in  Spain  was  less  divisive  than  in 
Christendom  generally.  Popular  learning  in  Spain 
was  inconsiderable  and  the  education  of  the  clergy 
so  low  that  the  council  of  Aranda,  in  1473,  had  to 
forbid  further  ordinations  of  those  ignorant  of  Latin, 
yet  the  Bible  was  much  studied  by  the  educated  of 
the  land,  in  vernacular  translations,  like  that  of 
1478,  as  well  as  in  the  learned  tongues.  The  Span- 
ish people  felt  an  intense  zeal  for  the  defence  and 
spread  of  the  Church,  often  quite  apart  from  any 
marked  conformity  of  life  to  its  teachings.  The 
missionary  motive,  strangely  intermingled  with 
much  more  sordid  aims,  was  undeniably  present  in 
the  explorers  and  conquerors  of  the  age  of  the  great 
discoveries,  and  added  its  inspiration  to  their  efforts 
to  gain  a  new  world.  And  in  this  desire  to  increase 
the  empire  of  the  Church,  these  men  of  action  were 
but  representative  of  the  nation  from  which  they 
sprang.  In  a  word,  in  no  European  country  was 
the  Church  more  thoroughly  representative  of 
the  national  life,  or  more  independent  of  papal  con- 
trol, while  yet  fanatically  attached  to  the  mediaeval 
ecclesiastical  system  which  found  its  head  in  the 
papacy,  than  in  Spain.  The  Spanish  Church  and 
the  Spanish  monarchy  felt  that  they  could  afford  to 
go  counter  to  the  papacy  in  many  things,  because 
their  churchly  zeal  and  Catholic  orthodoxy  were  be- 
yond question  ;  and  this  feeling  accounts  for  the  in- 


58  The  Reformation. 

dependence  of  papal  dictation,  while  strenuously 
maintaining  the  Roman  cause,  which  the  Spanish 
sovereigns  manifested  in  repeated  instances  during 
the  Reformation  period. 

So  it  came  about  that  when  Spanish  national  life 
suddenly  blossomed  forth  in  strength  under  the 
joint  sovereignty  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  those 
monarchs,  and  especially  the  deeply  religious  queen, 
turned  their  attention  to  the  purification  and  devel- 
opment of  the  Spanish  Church.  Not  that  their  mo- 
tives were  wholly  religious.  Their  aim  was  in  large 
part  political  —  to  control  the  Church  as  one  of 
the  organs  of  national  life.  Here,  as  throughout 
the  Reformation  period,  we  behold  religious  and 
political  impulses  so  intertwined  that  they  are 
scarcely  to  be  disassociated.  But,  none  the  less, 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  did  a  most  influential  work 
for  the  Spanish  Church.  Determined  as  earnestly 
to  better  the  notoriously  fallen  character  of  the 
Spanish  clergy  as  to  extend  the  power  of  the  crown, 
the  joint  sovereigns,  in  1482,  compelled  Pope  Six- 
tus  IV.,  by  ordering  the  withdrawal  of  Spanish  sub- 
jects from  the  papal  states  and  by  threatening  to 
call  a  general  council,  to  agree  to  a  concordat, 
wherein  the  pope  pledged  himself  to  appoint  only 
Spaniards  nominated  by  the  crown  to  the  higher 
positions  in  the  Church  of  the  peninsula.  The  royal 
rights  thus  confirmed  were  speedily  increased  in  the 
practice  of  the  joint  sovereigns.  Papal  bulls  ap- 
plicable to  Spain  now  required  the  royal  approval 
for  their  effective  promulgation  ;  the  ecclesiastical 
courts    were    supervised  ;    the  interference    of    the 


Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  59 

clergy  in  temporal  concerns  regulated,  special  taxes 
laid  upon  them,  and  the  Church  largely  brought 
under  the  royal  control. 

Under  the  extensive  powers  thus  vindicated,  many 
of  which  had  long  been  less  effectively  claimed  by 
Spanish  rulers,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  proceeded  to 
fill  the  important  stations  in  the  Spanish  Church,  as 
fast  as  they  became  vacant,  not  only  with  men  de- 
voted to  the  royal  interests,  but  of  strenuous  piety 
and  of  disciplinary  zeal.  In  this  work  they  received 
special  aid  from  three  men  of  marked  abilities — Car- 
dinal Pedro  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza,  who,  though  not 
himself  without  serious  faults  of  character,  at  least  in 
early  life,  filled  the  chief  see  of  Spain,  the  arch- 
bishopric of  Toledo,  from  1482  to  1495  ;  Fernando 
de  Talavera,  Isabella's  monastic  confessor,  who  was 
made  archbishop  of  Granada  on  the  surrender  of  that 
city  by  the  Moors  in  1492  ;  and  one  who  was  des- 
tined to  become  the  most  eminent  Spanish  ecclesi- 
astic of  the  age,  Gonzalez  (or,  as  he  preferred  to  call 
himself,  Francisco)  Ximenes  de  Cisneros,  who  suc- 
ceeded Talavera  as  the  queen's  confessor,  and,  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  dying  Mendoza,  was  given  the 
archbishopric  of  Toledo  by  the  influence  of  his  royal 
patron  in  1495. 

No  less  remarkable  in  talents  than  in  character, 
Ximenes  is  one  of  the  striking  figures  of  an  age  of 
great  men.  Born  in  comparative  poverty,  though 
of  good  family,  in  1436,  he  fitted  himself  for  the 
service  of  the  Church  by  studies  at  Alcala,  Salamanca 
and  Rome.  On  leaving  the  papal  city  for  Spain, 
in  1473,  Sixtus  IV.  presented  the  young  ecclesiastic, 


6o  The  Reformation. 

as  a  mark  of  good-will,  with  an  expectative  letter 
appointing  him  to  the  first  benefice  of  a  certain 
grade  of  income  that  should  become  vacant  in  the 
province  of  Toledo.  Naturally,  in  view  of  the  gen- 
eral attitude  of  the  Spanish  government  toward  papal 
interferences  of  which  this  was  a  type.  Archbishop 
Alfonso  Carillo  resented  Ximenes's  claim  to  an 
archpriesthood  at  Uzeda.  But  Ximenes  demon- 
strated not  so  much  his  respect  for  the  papacy  as  his 
tenacity  regarding  what  he  deemed  his  rights  by 
compelling  the  wearied  archbishop  to  admit  his  title 
after  that  ecclesiastical  superior  had  vainly  impris- 
oned the  obstinate  bearer  of  the  pope's  grant  for  six 
years.  Once  released,  Ximenes  rose  speedily  to 
prominence,  not  merely  as  a  zealous  priest,  but  even 
more  as  a  man  of  administrative  ability,  becoming 
vicar  to  Mendoza,  then  bishop  of  Siguenza,  but  to 
be  Carillo's  successor  in  the  see  of  Toledo  and 
Ximenes's  abundant  benefactor. 

Yet  to  Ximenes's  mediaeval  type  of  piety  a  life  of 
such  activity  did  not  seem  one  of  the  highest  Christ- 
likeness  ;  and,  therefore,  suddenly  abandoning  his 
hard-won  posts  of  authority,  he  joined  himself  to 
the  strictest  branch  of  the  Franciscans  and  distin- 
guished himself  even  among  his  austere  associates 
by  his  self-inflicted  mortifications  of  the  flesh  and 
spirit.  Such  a  man,  of  iron  firmness  of  will,  of 
mediaeval  piety,  of  great  executive  talent,  was  one 
to  make  a  mark  in  any  age  and  one  specially  fitted 
to  carry  on  the  peculiar  type  of  reformatory  work 
which  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  had  in  mind.  Ap- 
pointed Isabella's  confessor  in  1492,  the  queen  made 


Ximenes.  6 1 

him  the  head  of  the  Spanish  Church  by  procuring 
his  elevation  to  the  see  of  Toledo,  as  has  already- 
been  noted,  in  1495 — a  post  that  he  accepted  with 
great  reluctance.  Thenceforth  his  history  was 
closely  interwoven  with  that  of  the  Spanish  mon- 
archy, and  called  for  the  exercise  of  the  most  varied 
talents.  As  a  military  commander,  he  gave  success 
to  the  expedition  against  Oran,  on  the  coast  of 
Africa  opposite  Spain,  in  1509.  He  undertook  the 
regency  of  Spain  on  the  demise  of  Ferdinand,  and 
his  efforts  largely  aided  to  secure  the  kingdom  un- 
impaired for  Ferdinand's  grandson,  Charles.  Till 
his  death,  in  November,  15 17,  he  showed  himself  in 
everything  a  man  of  power. 

But  it  was  as  a  purifier  of  the  exceedingly  corrupt 
Spanish  Church  that  Ximenes  most  deserves  remem- 
brance. Chosen  provincial  of  the  Franciscans  of 
Castile  not  long  after  becoming  Isabella's  confessor, 
he  examined  the  monasteries  of  that  order  through- 
out the  kingdom  ;  and,  armed  with  a  bull  which 
the  queen  obtained  from  Alexander  VI.,  in  1494, 
he  took  their  reform  so  vigorously  in  hand,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  pope  lent  a  sympathetic  ear  to 
protests  from  those  whose  idle  peace  he  so  rudely 
disturbed,  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  it  is 
said,  more  than  a  thousand  monks  left  Spain  rather 
than  submit  to  his  strenuous  discipline.  Through  the 
royal  support,  and  Ximenes's  own  increased  powers 
as  archbishop  of  Toledo,  the  character  of  the  higher 
clergy  of  Spain  was  greatly  improved  in  a  decade. 
Men  of  piety,  strenuousness  of  life  and  disciplinary 
zeal  took  the  places  of  the  lax  and  the  licentious. 


62  The  Refoi'-mation. 

Ximenes  strove  no  less  earnestly,  and  with  no  less 
royal  support,  to  augment  the  learning  of  the  clergy. 
In  full  sympathy  with  the  humanistic  desire  for 
education  which  Isabella  fostered  by  generous  pat- 
ronage of  foreign  men  of  letters  whom  she  invited 
to  Spain,  as  well  as  by  liberal  support  of  Spanish 
scholars,  Ximenes  transformed  the  grammar  school 
at  Alcala  de  Henares,  then  two  centuries  old,  into 
a  generously  planned  university.  The  work,  begun 
in  1498,  was  formally  approved  by  Pope  Julius  II. 
in  1503  or  1504;  and  in  its  elaborate  accomplish- 
ment Ximenes  expended  a  considerable  part  of  the 
revenues  of  the  archbishopric  of  Toledo.  The  ex- 
ample thus  set  led  to  similar  foundations  in  Seville 
(1509)  and  Toledo  (1520).  The  "  Complutensian 
Polyglot,"  already  mentioned,  which  took  its  title 
from  the  Roman  name  of  Alcala,  Complutum,  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  important  early  monument  of  the 
scholastic  activity  thus  inaugurated. 

The  interest  in  the  text  of  the  Bible  illustrated  in 
this  great  publication  was  but  the  most  striking 
symptom  of  the  humanistic  and  theological  activity 
that  was  developing  in  the  higher  Spanish  seats  of 
learning  under  joint  sovereignty  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella.  The  queen  had  welcomed  a  gifted  Italian 
scholar,  Pietro  Martire  (Peter  Martyr),  of  Arona,  as 
early  as  1487  ;  and  his  fellow-countryman,  Lucio 
Marineo,  found  an  equal  acceptance.  Antonio  de 
Lebrija,  the  foremost  Spanish  humanist  of  the  clos- 
ing years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  fostered  the  study 
of  the  classics  at  the  University  of  Salamanca,  and 
afterward,  drawn  thither    by  Ximenes,  at   Alcala, 


Theolos[ical  Learninp: 


till  his  death  in  1522.  It  is  characteristic  of  the 
tendency  of  Spanish  humanism,  in  contrast  to  the 
religious  indifference  of  the  much  more  developed 
revival  of  learning  in  Italy,  that  Lebrija  combined 
humanistic  zeal  for  antiquity  with  studies  in  theology 
and  labors  on  the  "  Complutensian  Polyglot." 

From  the  revived  scholastic  life  of  the  Spanish 
universities  came  also  a  revival  of  the  theology  of 
Aquinas,  that  noblest  product  of  mediaeval  Christian 
thought,  and  the  rejection  of  nominalism  and  of 
much  that  the  later  mediaeval  theology  had  de- 
veloped. This  return  to  the  comparatively  purer 
theology  of  the  great  Dominican  and  its  realistic 
philosophy  was  begun  by  Francisco  de  Vittoria 
(P-I546)  at  Salamanca.  But  it  was  to  be  con- 
tinued in  augmented  power  by  Vittoria's  pupils, 
the  great  Roman  theologians  of  the  early  struggle 
with  Protestantism,  Domingo  de  Soto  (1494-1560), 
of  Alcald  and  Salamanca,  the  foremost  dogmatician 
in  the  Council  of  Trent,  whose  scholars  admiringly 
declared  of  his  exposition  of  Christian  doctrine, 
quiscit  Sotum,  scit  totum  ;  and  Melchior  Cano  (1523- 
60),  of  the  same  universities,  whose  De  Locis  theo- 
logicis  libri  XII.  was  to  be  the  ablest  defence  of  the 
mediaeval  theological  system  against  the  Protestant 
attack  that  the  sixteenth  century  produced.  There 
was  nothing  of  Protestantism  in  the  theological 
movement  just  described,  nothing  that  promised 
increased  freedom  for  the  human  mind  or  new  un- 
foldings  of  truth  ;  but  it  was  a  return  to  what  had 
been  most  worthy  in  the  middle  ages,  and,  as  such, 
it  represented  a  gain  for  the  Church. 


64  The  Reformation. 


These  praiseworthy  reforms,  to  the  inauguration 
of    which    the    religious    zeal    of    Isabella    and    the 
political  wisdom  of  Ferdinand,    no    less   than    the 
firmness    and    mediaeval    piety    of    Ximenes,    con- 
tributed,   were    accompanied    by   the    revival    and 
reorganization  of  an   institution  congenial    to   the 
Spanish  temper  of  the  fifteenth  century,  but  upon 
which  the  modern  world  looks  with  revulsion — the 
Inquisition.     The  reigns  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
witnessed  the  conquest  of  the  last  strongholds  of 
Mohammedanism  on  the   Spanish   peninsula.     To 
the  Spanish  temper,  trained  by  centuries  of  warfare 
with  opponents  of  Christianity  to  view  purity  of 
doctrine  as  a  patriotic  virtue  and  to  regard  any  who 
departed  from  traditional  orthodoxy  as  dangerous 
enemies,  the  continued  exercise  of  their  religious 
rites  by  Jews  and  Moslems  within  Spanish  territory 
was  obnoxious.     Race  hatred  intensified  the  great 
popular    suspicion    that    prevailed    regarding    the 
orthodoxy  of  those  once  of  these  hostile  faiths  who 
had  been  induced  by  rigorous  edicts  to  conform  to 
Christianity.     Judaism  in  particular  was  believed  to 
be  secretly  spreading. 

Against  these  elements  unsympathetic  with  the 
national  religious  life  the  Spanish  mind  could  con- 
ceive no  more  effective  weapon  than  a  revival  of  the 
mediaeval  institution  that  had  proved  its  power  to 
suppress  the  Cathari  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Accordingly,  probably  in  1478,  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  secured  the  consent  of  Pope  Sixtus  IV.  to 
the  establishment  of  an  inquisitorial  court,  ap- 
pointed by  the  sovereigns,  and  composed  of  eccle- 


The  Inquisition.  65 

siastics  and  laymen,  thus  representing  political  and 
churchly  interests.  The  revived  and  intensified 
tribunal  began  its  work  with  such  vigor  at  Seville 
with  the  opening  of  the  year  148 1,  that,  in  1482, 
Sixtus  IV.  complained  of  its  severity,  and  the  next 
year  declared  his  readiness  to  receive  appeals  from 
the  decisions  of  the  royal  inquisitors.  Rome  had, 
indeed,  at  this  time  little  of  the  fanatic  zeal  that 
Spanish  history  had  made  natural  to  the  Spanish 
character  ;  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt,  also,  that  the 
pope  disapproved  of  the  independence  of  the  Span- 
ish Inquisition  from  papal  control  and  its  close 
alliance  with  the  crown.  But,  on  this  matter,  as  on 
many  others  where  papal  policy  ran  counter  to  their 
wishes,  the  joint  sovereigns  were  determined  ;  and 
the  same  year  that  witnessed  this  second  papal  pro- 
test beheld  the  appointment  of  the  painfully  cele- 
brated Tomas  Torquemada  as  grand-inquisitor  for 
Castile  and  Aragon.  Under  him  this  fearful  weapon 
of  ecclesiastical  and  royal  power  was  perfected. 
The  succeeding  grand-inquisitor,  Diego  de  Deza 
(1498-1507),  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Torque- 
mada ;  and,  on  his  resignation,  Ximenes  assumed 
the  grand-inquisitorship  of  Castile — an  office  which 
he  administered  till  his  death  with  uprightness,  but 
with  the  unbending  severity  natural  to  his  intense 
character. 

The  Spanish  Inquisition  was,  from  the  first,  as 
much  royal  as  ecclesiastical — its  motive  power  was 
the  employment  of  Spanish  devotion  to  doctrinal 
orthodoxy  as  a  weapon  no  less  against  the  enemies 
of  the  crown  than  for  the  suppression  of  those  of 


66  The  Refo7nnatio7i. 

the  Church.  As  such,  much  of  its  confiscations 
went  to  the  royal  treasury.  As  such,  too,  its  juris- 
diction was  extended,  especially  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  to  cover  a  great  variety  of  offences 
beside  that  of  unorthodoxy  of  belief.  Accusations 
of  witchcraft  naturally  fell  to  its  cognizance,  certain 
offences  against  chastity  brought  the  criminal  under 
its  jurisdiction,  and  so  widely  were  its  powers 
stretched  in  the  royal  interest  that,  by  the  time  the 
institution  had  been  a  century  established,  men 
were  punished  by  it  for  the  sale  of  horses  or  ammu- 
nition to  France,  with  which  country  Spain  was  at 
war.  Its  sentences  of  death  were  executed  by  civil 
authority. 

Though  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  the 
methods  of  the  Inquisition,  cruel  as  they  seem  from 
a  modern  standpoint,  were  milder  than  those  of 
contemporary  civil  law,  its  victims  were  numerous 
both  among  those  against  whom  it  was  originally 
directed  and  later  among  Protestants,  and  its  effect 
in  checking  all  independence  of  thought  was  widely 
disastrous  beyond  the  range  of  those  who  came 
before  its  bar.  Its  result  could  not  be  other  than 
ultimate  paralysis.  Yet  while  the  Inquisition  en- 
countered considerable  opposition  from  the  popes 
of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  from 
nobles,  prelates,  and  even  some  communities  in 
Spain  itself,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  throughout 
the  Reformation  period,  it  was  highly  popular  with 
the  people  of  Spain  as  a  whole  ;  and  the  cause  of 
its  popularity,  in  spite  of  frequent  subserviency  to 
royal  tyranny,  was  that  Avhich  renders  its  memory 


The  Inquisition.  67 

most  odious  to  the  present  age — its  suppression 
of  all  departures  from  mediaeval  orthodoxy  of 
thought. 

But,  whatever  its  lights  and  shadows,  the  revival 
of  the  Spanish  Church  was  a  quickening  of  its 
religious  life.  It  evidenced  the  deepening  hold  of 
religion  on  the  people  of  a  peninsula  just  awakening 
to  the  possibilities  of  a  hitherto  unimagined  politi- 
cal role  on  the  continent  of  Europe  and  the  unfold- 
ing of  a  new  empire  in  just  discovered  lands  beyond 
the  seas.  The  highest  spiritual  fruitage  of  the 
movement  is  probably  to  be  seen  in  one  who  was  as 
true  a  son  of  the  Spanish  awakening  as  of  the  land, 
however  he  may  have  turned  toward  a  subserviency 
to  the  papacy  such  as  Isabella  or  Ximenes  never 
displayed — Ignatius  Loyola.  It  was  not  a  reforma- 
tory movement  of  profound  and  original  creative 
power,  or  of  promise  for  the  future.  It  was  essen- 
tially imitative — a  return  to  the  better  period  of 
mediaeval  Christianity — and,  being  imitative,  it  had 
not  the  freshness  or  the  freedom  of  the  pattern  that 
it  copied.  Its  spirit  was  repression  of  individuality, 
not  emancipation  of  thought  and  Christian  freedom. 
Doubtless  its  spread  into  other  lands,  and  in  some 
measure  the  intensity  of  its  later  development,  were 
greatly  aided  by  the  rise  of  Protestantism,  of  which 
it  was  recognized  at  once  as  the  most  worthy  foe. 
But  the  Reformation  period  cannot  be  understood 
without  recollection  of  the  development  in  Spain, 
before  Luther  began  his  work,  of  a  type  of  churchly 
reform  which,  however  inadequate  in  the  eyes  of 
Teutonic  Europe,  satisfied  the  Spanish  people,  was 


68  The  Re/ornmiwn. 

approved  by  such  leaders  of  the  sixteenth  century 
as  the  emperor  Charles  V.,  and  furnished  in  large 
measure  the  pattern  and  the  impetus  of  the  "  coun- 
ter-Reformation "  which,  after  the  struggle  was 
over,  held  half  of  western  Christendom  for  the 
ancient  Church. 

Till  after  the  beginning  of  the  Saxon  revolution, 
the  reformatory  movement  to  which  attention  has 
been  directed  was  essentially  Spanish.  Yet  it  had 
sympathizers  elsewhere.  England  was  probably 
the  land  in  which,  next  to  Spain,  a  conservative 
betterment  of  the  Church  by  the  working  together 
of  the  crown,  the  more  earnest  of  the  clergy  and  the 
representatives  of  the  new  learning  seemed  possible. 
In  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  some 
promise  of  such  a  movement  appeared.  Under 
Henry  VIII.,  as  early  as  151 1,  Parliament  had 
taken  a  step  which  might  have  been  the  beginning 
of  extensive  administrative  reforms  by  abolishing 
the  ancient  ecclesiastical  rights  of  sanctuary  and 
benefit  of  clergy  in  cases  of  murder  ;  and  the  young 
king  defended  this  curtailment  of  the  outworn 
privileges  of  the  Church,  in  15 16,  with  the  declara- 
tion :  "  We  are,  by  God's  grace,  King  of  England, 
and  have  no  superior  but  God."  The  new  learning 
had  brought  the  desire  for  a  better  educated  clergy 
to  the  front  in  England  as  elsewhere  ;  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  converting  monastic  property  into  endow- 
ments for  education  had  been  perceived  as  early  as 
1497,  when  John  Alcock,  bishop  of  Ely,  secured 
the  suppression  of  a  Cambridge  nunnery  that  Jesus 
College    might    be    founded.     As   has    often    been 


Reforms  Outside  of  Spain.  69 

pointed  out,  it  was  Cardinal  Wolsey  who  showed 
Henry  VIII.  the  road  he  was  to  take  regarding  the 
monastic  establishments  of  England  ;  and,  could 
that  ambitious  minister's  plans  have  been  carried 
out,  something  very  similar  to  the  Spanish  reform 
would  have  taken  place  in  England  before  Luther 
had  more  than  begun  his  work  in  Germany.  But 
Henry  VIII.  was  no  Isabella  in  piety,  nor  was 
Wolsey  a  Ximenes  either  in  character  or  under- 
standing of  the  nation  in  which  he  was  the  first 
subject,  nor  were  the  English  people  fanatic  for 
mediaeval  orthodoxy,  like  those  of  Spain.  The 
promise  of  a  reformation  of  the  Spanish  type  in 
England  remained  but  a  promise.  The  reformation 
when  it  came  to  England  was  to  be  far  more  radi- 
cal, vital  and  deep-reaching  than  that  of  Spain  ; 
but  England  in  the  first  two  decades  of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  not  ready  for  it. 

Elsewhere,  too,  the  Spanish  example  found  early 
approval.  In  the  Netherlands,  where  Spanish  in- 
fluence was  strong,  and  where  the  young  sovereign, 
Charles,  who  was  to  ascend  the  Spanish  throne  in 
1 5 16,  was  educated,  considerable  sympathy  was  felt 
with  the  movement.  Such  a  sympathizer  with  its 
general  principles  was  Adrian  of  Utrecht  (1459- 
1523),  professor  of  theology  at  Louvain,  and  tutor 
to  Charles,  whom  that  young  ruler  when  come  to 
kingship  appointed  bishop  of  Tortosa  in  Spain,  and 
grand-inquisitor  for  Aragon,  Castile  and  Navarre, 
and  to  whom  he  intrusted  the  regency  of  Spain  on 
his  departure  from  that  country  in  1520.  The 
Netherlandish    teacher,   in    his  brief   and  troubled 


70  The  Reformation. 

papacy  as  Adrian  VI.  (1522-23),  was  to  bring  un- 
welcome reformatory  principles  to  the  papal  curia 
itself. 

The  Spanish  movement  had  also  its  effect  in  the 
training  of  one  who  was  to  be  more  than  any  other 
the  restorer  of  the  fallen  papal  power  in  Italy, 
Giovanni  Pietro  Caraffa  (1476-15 59),  ultimately  to 
occupy  the  papal  throne  as  Paul  IV.  (1555-59). 
Personally  acquainted  with  Ximenes  and  brought 
under  the  influence  of  the  Spanish  churchly  ten- 
dency which  that  intense  and  masterful  man  repre- 
sented, Caraffa  was  to  contribute  mightily,  a  quarter 
of  a  century  after  the  Lutheran  revolt,  to  the  sup- 
pression of  Italian  Protestantism  and  the  transfer  of 
the  papacy  from  the  control  of  cultivated,  irre- 
ligious, predominantly  political  representatives  of 
the  Italian  Renascence  to  earnest,  well-nigh  fanatical, 
mediaevally-minded  standard-bearers  of  the  counter- 
Reformation. 

Yet,  however  fully  earnest  men  of  conservative 
tendencies  might  here  and  there  sympathize  with  the 
Spanish  movement  and  regard  it  as  treading  the  most 
hopeful  path  toward  general  churchly  reform,  the 
fact  remains  that  its  control  was  still  restricted  to 
Spain  at  the  time  that  Luther  began  his  work  ;  and 
it  might  have  run  its  course  and  spent  its  fires  in  the 
peninsula  of  its  birth  had  it  not  been  stimulated  by 
the  counter-tendencies  of  the  German  Reformation. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE    SAXON    REVOLT. 


N  considering  the  social  and  political  con- 
ditions antecedent  to  the  Reformation, 
the  universal  unrest  prevalent  in  Ger- 
many was  pointed  out.  The  peasantry 
of  that  land  were  chafing  under  their 
burdens,  the  lesser  nobility  were  dissatisfied  with 
their  threatened  loss  of  lawless  independence,  the 
cities  were  displeased  with  the  limitations  on  trade 
and  the  narrow-minded  exclusiveness  of  their  guilds 
and  wealthy  families,  the  greater  nobility  were 
fretted  with  quarrels  and  contests  for  local  sover- 
eignty, and  the  emperor  and  his  counsellors  were 
hampered  by  the  slight  respect  shown  to  imperial 
authority,  the  difficulty  in  collecting  imperial 
taxes  and  enforcing  imperial  judicial  decrees.  All 
elements  in  the  land  had  some  special  cause  for 
ferment  ;  but  in  regard  to  no  evils  were  complaints 
more  united  than  those  which  grew  out  of  the 
oppressive  administration  of  the  Roman  curia.  The 
attempts  to  reform  the  government  of  the  empire — 
little  successful  as  they  were — were  accompanied  by 
protests  against  papal  interferences  and  attacks  on 
papal  taxes.     At  the  Reichstag  of   1510   a  list  of 

71 


,^ 


72  The  Reformation. 

complaints  against  abuses  of  papal  administration 
in  Germany  was  formulated,  and  the  keen-eyed 
Italian  ecclesiastic,  Girolamo  Aleandro  (Aleander), 
soon  to  be  Leo  X.'s  nuntius  at  the  German  im- 
perial court,  reported  to  the  incredulous  Roman 
authorities,  in  1516,  his  opinion  that  there  would 
be  a  rising  of  the  Germans  against  the  papal  see  if 
a  voice  was  lifted  against  Rome. 

Such  voices  were,  indeed,  being  heard  early  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  but  none  that  had  as  yet 
widely  caught  the  public  ear.  The  humanistic 
movement  in  Germany  was  taking  on  a  more 
radical  and  anti-churchly  tone.  The  elder  German 
humanists,  like  Jakob  Wimpheling  (1450-1528),  the 
friend  of  schools,  the  opponent  of  monasticism  and 
of  papal  usurpations,  or  that  powerful  preacher  of 
righteousness,  Johann  Geiler  of  Strassburg  (1445- 
15 10),  or  even  the  satirical  poet,  Sebastian  Brant 
(1457-1521),  whose  Narrenschiff  oi  1494  most  effec- 
tively ridiculed  the  errors  of  that  distraught  age, 
were  almost  universally  in  sympathy  with  the 
Church,  and  laborious  for  its  improvement  in 
morals  and  learning,  however  keenly  critical  of  its 
blemishes  and  sins.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  that 
leader  of  transalpine  humanists,  Johann  Reuchlin 
(145 5-1 522),  who  had  no  thought  of  rejecting 
mediaeval  doctrine,  or  of  seriously  modifying  the 
mediaeval  ecclesiastical  system.  These  men,  like 
such  earnest-minded  bishops  as  Berthold  of  Mainz 
(ep.  1484-1504),  Johann  Dalberg  of  Worms  (ep. 
1482-1503),  Albrecht  of  Strassburg  (ep.  1478- 1506), 
or   Friedrich    of  Augsburg   (ep.    1486-1505),    who 


The  German  Humanists.  "j"^ 

sympathized  with  their  humanistic  zeal,  were  all 
desirous  of  a  reformation  of  the  humanistic  type, 
but  were  in  no  sense  inclined  to  a  breach  with  the 
mediaeval  ecclesiastical  system,  whose  betterment 
they  sincerely  wished. 

This  serious-minded,  churchly  sympathy,  char- 
acteristic of  the  older  German  humanists,  was  not 
shared  by  many  of  the  representatives  of  the  new 
learning  in  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Restless,  vain  and  active,  though  nation- 
al and  patriotic  in  feeling,  men  of  whom  Ulrich 
von  Hutten  (1488- 1523)  was  a  type  attacked  the 
Church,  not  primarily  to  improve  its  fallen  state, 
but  largely  for  the  love  of  combat.  These  men 
spoke  out  boldly  enough  against  the  papacy  and  all 
that  it  represented  ;  but  they  did  not  appeal  to  the 
deep  religious  feeling  of  the  nation,  and  were  in- 
capable of  kindling  a  religious  revolt  from  Rome, 
however  able  to  add  to  the  popular  turmoil  when 
once  such  a  revolt  was  begun. 

But,  curiously  enough,  one  of  the  most  retiring 
and  least  polemic  of  the  older  type  of  German  hu- 
manists, Johann  Reuchlin,  was  fated  to  be  the  cen- 
tre of  a  literary  and  theological  quarrel  which  caused 
educated  Germany  to  take  opposing  sides,  which 
enlisted  all  the  more  radical  humanists  in  Reuchlin's 
support,  and  undoubtedly  helped  to  give  occasion 
to  the  outbreak  of  the  long-threatening  religious 
revolution.  In  1506  or  1507  a  certain  Johann 
Pfefferkorn,  a  convert  from  Judaism,  was  baptized 
at  Cologne.  Here  he  speedily  distinguished  him- 
self by  attacks  on  his  former  religious  associates, 


74  The  Reformation. 

and  won  the  support  of  the  leading  Dominicans, 
then  conspicuous  as  the  most  conservative  opponents 
of  humanism  in  Germany,  the  prior  of  whose  con- 
vent at  Cologne,  Jacob  van  Hoogstraten  (1454-1 527), 
was  inquisitor-general  for  the  archbishoprics  of 
Cologne,  Mainz  and  Trier,  and  an  influential  mem- 
ber of  the  theological  faculty  of  the  University  of 
Cologne.  Supported  by  the  Dominicans  and  by 
Kunigonda,  sister  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian, 
Pfefferkorn  obtained  from  that  sovereign,  in  1509, 
an  order  commanding  the  Jews  of  Germany  to  sur- 
render for  destruction  all  volumes  in  Hebrew  de- 
fending Judaism  or  attacking  Christianity.  Pfeffer- 
korn's  attempted  enforcement  of  this  edict  met 
opposition  even  from  the  German  clergy.  Few 
Christians  read  Hebrew  ;  and,  after  some  negotia- 
tion, the  emperor  asked  opinions  from  the  univer- 
sities, from  Hoogstraten,  the  inquisitor  of  the  dis- 
trict where  the  Jews  were  most  numerous,  and  from 
Reuchlin,  then  famous  as  the  first  of  Christian  au- 
thorities on  Hebrew  literature  by  reason  of  his 
Rudimenta  Hebraica  of  1506,  as  to  what  books  to 
seize.  Hoogstraten  counselled  the  confiscation  of 
the  Talmud.  Reuchlin,  on  the  contrary,  advised  that 
only  the  relatively  unimportant  Nizachon  and  Tolo- 
doth  Jeschu  be  prohibited.  He  urged  the  unwisdom 
of  attacking  Jewish  literature  generally,  while  that 
of  pagan  Greece  and  Rome  was  held  in  honor  ;  he 
had  a  good  word  to  say  regarding  the  rights  of  the 
Jews  as  citizens  of  the  empire,  and  pleaded  for  in- 
struction in  Hebrew  as  a  desirable  addition  to  the 
existing    university    courses.     It    was    the    broads 


Reuchlin  Attacked.  75 

minded,  statesmanlike  opinion  of  a  scholar  anxious 
to  promote  learning  and  conscious  of  no  departure 
from  current  orthodoxy.  But  it  traversed  Pfeffer- 
korn's  plans ;  and  Pfefferkorn  at  once  attacked 
Reuchlin  with  violence  as  a  disguised  enemy  of 
Christianity  and  a  purchased  tool  of  the  Jews. 
Reuchlin  replied  with  equal  warmth  in  a  tract  en- 
titled the  AiLgenspiegel,  and  showed  some  modifica- 
tion of  his  previous  charity  toward  things  Jewish  in 
view  of  the  approaching  storm.  He  had  no  love  for 
controversy,  and  the  quarrel  was  none  of  his  seeking. 
But  now,  in  15 12,  the  theological  faculty  of  Cologne 
University  condemned  Reuchlin's  pamphlet  and 
called  on  him  to  retract  some  of  his  positions.  A 
bitter  war  of  publication  ensued  ;  till  Hoogstraten, 
who  as  a  member  of  the  Cologne  faculty  had  already 
passed  unfavorably  on  Reuchlin's  work,  in  his  ca- 
pacity as  inquisitor,  summoned  Reuchlin  to  appear 
for  trial  at  Mainz  in  September,  15 13.  Reuchlin, 
supported  by  the  archbishop  of  Mainz,  appealed  to 
Rome  ;  and,  after  great  delay  and  shifting  legal 
processes,  at  last,  on  June  20,  1520,  the  pope  found 
Reuchlin's  now  aged  Augenspiegel  dangerous  and 
too  favorable  to  the  Jews,  and  directed  its  author  to 
keep  silent  on  that  subject  of  controversy. 

The  chief  significance  of  this  bitter  dispute  was  not 
in  the  contests  of  the  principal  actors,  but  in  its 
evident  division  of  educated  and  ecclesiastical  Ger- 
many into  two  camps.  The  one,  the  party  of  con- 
servatism, led  by  Hoogstraten,  and  enjoying  not 
merely  the  support  of  the  Dominicans,  but  of  the 
monks  and  the  more  ignorant  of  the  clergy,  opposed 


7 6  The   Reformation. 


what  it  deemed  the  dangerous  innovations  of  Reuch- 
Hn.  The  other  embraced  the  humanists  of  Germany 
and  many  of  the  more  hberal  of  the  clergy,  and 
enjoyed  the  active  sympathy  of  men  of  the  new 
learning  throughout  Europe,  who  felt  that,  whatever 
the  merits  of  the  immediate  question  in  debate  be- 
tween Reuchlin  and  his  foes,  such  repression  of  a 
scholar  of  European  fame  and  service  as  Hoogstraten 
attempted  was  a  scandal.  Nor  did  clergy  and  schol- 
ars alone  divide.  The  Emperor  Maximilian  wrote 
to  Leo  X.  in  favor  of  Reuchlin,  while  his  grandson, 
the  later  emperor,  Charles  V.,  similarly  supported 
Hoogstraten.  But  the  chief  result  for  Germany 
was  that  the  younger  humanists  spread  wide  the 
feeling  that  the  conservative  opposition  to  Reuchlin 
by  the  Dominicans  and  those  generally  who  would 
most  heartily  support  existing  institutions  was  that 
of  a  stupid  and  ignorant  party  against  representa- 
tives of  learning  and  progress.  No  weapon  of  in- 
tellectual combat  is  so  effective  as  this  ;  and  the 
extensive  diffusion  of  this  feeling  is  evident  in  the 
wide  approval  that  greeted  that  famous  satire  on 
monkish  ignorance  and  conservatism,  the  EpistolcB 
Obscurorum  Virorum,  in  which,  during  1515,  15 16 
and  1517,  several  of  the  younger  humanists,  led 
by  Crotus  Rubianus  and  Ulrich  von  Hutten, 
attacked  Reuchlin's  opponents  with  piercing  shafts 
of  ridicule.  The  controversy,  as  a  whole,  did 
much  to  spread  in  Germany  an  attitude  of  mind 
open  to  much  more  radical  criticisms  of  the 
existing  churchly  state  than  anything  Reuchlin 
dreamed. 


Alar  tin  Luther.  *]"] 

It  was  while  this  controversy  was  at  its  height 
that  an  academic  protest,  begun  as  a  consequence 
of  pastoral  fidelity,  by  the  leading  monastic  pro- 
fessor in  one  of  the  youngest  and  most  remote  of 
the  universities  of  Germany,  roused  the  German  na- 
tion as  with  a  trumpet  call,  because  the  appeal  to 
the  turmoiled  age  went  deeper  than  any  problem  of 
scholarly  toleration,  deeper  than  any  reformatory 
efforts  which  aimed  merely  at  the  betterment  of 
clerical  morals  and  education,  to  the  profound  needs 
of  the  human  heart,  and  awoke  questionings  which 
till  then  had  scarcely  risen  to  conscious  recognition 
in  thousands  of  sincerely  religious  souls. 

Martin  Luther,  from  whom  this  protest  came,  is 
one  of  the  heroic  figures  not  merely  of  the  Reforma- 
tion age,  but  of  all  history.  Without  him  the  Ref- 
ormation would  have  been  delayed,  or  might  have 
run  a  vastly  different  course.  He  is  one  of  the  few 
men  of  whom  it  may  unhesitatingly  be  said  that  he 
made  the  world  other  than  it  would  have  been  had 
he  not  done  his  work.  {■^Before  the  towering  per- 
sonality of  this  leader  o^  the  Reformation  age  all 
other  reformers  seem  relatively  insignificant.  He 
was  the  pioneer  of  the  road  to  spiritual  freedom. 
His  power  was  that  of  an  intense,  almost  mystical, 
faith  in  God,  of  a  courage  thrat  counted  no  obstacle 
too  great,  of  a  leadership  that  rendered  him  a  born 
king  of  men.  Radical  in  action  when  he  deemed 
that  which  he  opposed  corrupt,  he  was  yet  by  nature 
conservative,  and  tore  down  only  that  he  might  re- 
store to  what  he  deemed  its  primitive  purity  that 
which  appeared  to  him  vital  in  the  old. 


78  The  Reformation. 

But  Luther  moved  the  Germans  the  more  because, 
in  addition  to  these  qualities  which  made  him  a 
leader  of  the  race,  he  was  a  German  of  the  Germans. 
Sprung  from  sturdy  peasant  stock,  one  with  the 
common  people  by  birth  and  training,  sympathizing 
with  their  needs  and  feelings,  intensely  devoted  to 
the  land  of  his  nativity,  the  virtues  and  the  faults  of 
his  country  were  alike  reflected  in  him.  Short  and, 
in  later  life,  stout  of  figure  ;  blunt  of  speech,  with 
words  that  struck  like  a  bludgeon  rather  than  pierced 
like  a  rapier  ;  intense  in  his  earnestness  ;  devout  in 
his  inmost  soul,  yet  with  no  natural  inclination  to 
asceticism  ;  a  lover  of  music,  of  the  home,  of  the 
simple  pleasures  of  the  friendly  circle  ;  fond  of  talk, 
quick  of  temper,  violent  in  passion,  yet  of  kindly 
heart  and  devotedly  loyal  to  his  friends,  Luther  ap- 
peals to  his  countrymen  to  this  day  as  an  embodi- 
ment of  that  which  is  most  characteristic  in  the  Ger- 
man temperament.  '  One  with  his  countrymen,  yet 
above  them  by  the  strength  of  an  intenser  faith,  of  a 
deeper  consciousness  of  God,  and  by  the  power  of 
natural  leadership,  Luther  is  the  popular  hero  of 
German  history.  Yet,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  so 
largely  a  son  of  his  Fatherland,  Luther  has  never 
been  so  fully  appreciated  outside  of  Germany  as  by 
his  fellow  countrymen;  Englishmen,  as  a  rule, 
though  recognizing  the  greatness  of  the  work  he 
did,  have  seldom  quite  comprehended  the  thrill  of 
enthusiasm  with  which  a  German  Protestant  recalls 
his  name.  To  Italians,  Frenchmen  or  Spaniards, 
especially  of  Roman  training,  his  character  usually 
remains   an   unsolved  enigma,  as  of  one  foreign  to 


Luther  s  Early    Years.  79 

their  habits  of  thought  and  traits  of  race.  But  none 
can  deny  his  forcefulness,  or  disparage  his  power  to 
mould  the  thoughts  of  men.  Viewed  as  heretic 
or  as  restorer  of  the  Christian  faith,  he  commands 
men's  attention  by  the  might  of  a  titanic  person- 
ality. 

The  future  reformer  was  born  on  November  10, 
1483,  at  Eisleben,  and  received  the  name,  Martin, 
at  his  baptism  on  the  day  following,  in  honor  of  the 
saint  whom  that  day  of  baptism  commemorated. 
Eisleben,  the  scene  of  Luther's  birth  and  death,  was 
not  the  family  home.  His  parents,  Hans  and  Mar- 
garetha  (Ziegler)  Luther,  were  hard-working,  self- 
respecting  peasant  folk  of  Mohra,  where  the  Luther 
family  had  long  been  known  and  still  has  repre- 
sentatives, and  where  his  father  had  learned  the 
copper  miner's  trade.  Search  for  work  had  brought 
them  to  Eisleben,  and  was  to  take  them  to  Mans- 
feld  when  Martin  was  six  months  old ;  and  at 
Mansfeld  the  parents  were  to  live  in  great  poverty 
till  thrift,  hard  work  and  enterprise  raised  them,  by 
the  time  Martin  was  passing  from  boyhood  to  man- 
hood, to  a  fair  competency  and  to  a  respected  place 
in  the  Mansfeld  community.  The  father  was  en- 
ergetic, and  ambitious  for  his  boy  even  more  than 
for  himself.  The  mother  was  earnestly  religious  ; 
and  though  both  parents  were  severe  in  discipline, 
even  judged  by  the  standards  of  that  age  and  the 
hard  conditions  of  a  peasant  miner's  home,  both 
father  and  mother  sacrificed  themselves  to  give  to 
their  sou  advantages  which  they  themselves  had  not 
enjoyed,      Luther's  training   in   the  rude  school  at 


8o  The  Reformaticm. 

Mansfeld  was  followed,  in  1497,  by  a  year's  in- 
struction at  Magdeburg;  and  thereafter,  till  1501, 
by  four  years  of  excellent  teaching,  chiefly  in  the 
use  of  Latin,  in  his  mother's  native  town  of  Eise- 
nach, where  the  boy,  who,  like  other  scholars  of 
scanty  means,  had  been  at  first  compelled  to  gain  his 
support  by  singing  for  alms,  soon  found  a  friendly 
home  in  the  house  of  Frau  Ursula  Cotta.  The  year 
1 501  saw  Luther  a  student  at  the  University  of 
Erfurt,  then  the  most  largely  attended  of  the  seats 
of  higher  learning  in  Germany,  intent  on  accom- 
plishing his  father's  desire  that  he  should  become  a 
lawyer.  The  university  was  still  in  debate.  With- 
in its  halls  the  new  humanism  was  vigorously  repre- 
sented ;  but  the  greater  part  of  the  instruction  still 
pursued  the  paths  marked  out  by  scholasticism, 
though  the  Erfurt  scholasticism  was  the  critical, 
nominalistic  philosophy  of  Occam,  Gerson  and  Biel, 
strongly  opposed  to  the  Thomist  theology  by 
which  the  claims  of  the  papacy  had  been  most 
effectively  furthered.  But  though  the  scholastic 
rather  than  the  humanistic  spirit  attracted  Luther, 
humanism  had  sufficiently  permeated  the  university 
to  incline  him  to  read  diligently  the  great  authors 
of  classical  antiquity,  who  appealed  to  him  not  by 
the  beauty  of  their  style  so  much  as  by  their  pres- 
entation of  the  great  problems  and  experiences  of 
life.  A  sociable,  music-loving  companion,  he  was 
yet  a  hard  student ;  and  it  was  with  credit  that  he 
received  the  Bachelor's  degree  in  1502  and  that  of 
Master  in  1505.  Religion,  too,  had  strong  hold 
upon  the  student.     The  work  of  each  day  he  began 


Spirihial  Azvakening.  8 1 

with  prayer,  and  no  greater  satisfaction  came  to 
him  in  his  university  life  than  the  discovery,  in  the 
university  Hbrary,  of  a  complete  copy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures— the  first  he  had  ever  seen,  though  portions 
had  long  been  familiar  through  their  use  not  only  in 
Latin,  but  in  German,  as  lessons  in  the  Church. 
That  Luther  had  not  earlier  encountered  the  entire 
sacred  volume  is  not  surprising.  Even  half  a  cen- 
tury after  the  Bible  had  first  been  printed,  it  must 
have  been  regarded  as  costly  beyond  the  means  of 
a  peasant  household,  and  books  were  the  tools  of 
the  learned  rather  than  the  companions  of  the 
many. 

Throughout  his  student  life,  doubtless  with  in- 
creasing power  toward  its  close,  came  to  him  the 
question,  "How  may  I  gain  a  gracious  God?"  It 
was  no  special  sin  that  thus  burdened  Luther's  soul. 
Judged  by  the  standards  of  the  time,  his  life  at  the 
university  was  wholly  creditable.  But  he  felt,  as 
many  of  the  most  devoted  servants  of  God  of  all 
ages  have  experienced,  a  profound  sense  of  his  own 
sinfulness  ;  and  his  training  had  led  him  to  look 
upon  God  as  a  severe  judge,  about  to  condemn  him 
to  eternal  damnation,  and  to  be  placated  only  by 
the  utmost  efforts  to  make  reparation  for  all  the 
faults  of  his  life  since  baptism  and  to  fulfil  all  the 
divine  commands.  Christ  was,  indeed,  a  saviour, 
but  a  saviour  who  obtained  for  the  sinner  a  fresh 
opportunity  for  winning  God's  favor  rather  than  a 
full  redeemer  from  all  condemnation  for  sin.  And 
between  the  stern  and  exalted  Judge  and  his  sinful 
creatures  the  effective  intercessors  were  that  Chris- 


82  The  Reformation. 

tian  nobility,  the  saints,  whose  prayers  God  heard 
gladly,  and  whose  sympathy  was  readily  given  to 
the  struggling  ones  on  earth. 

Then,  too,  the  youthful  Luther,  like  the  men  of 
the  sixteenth  century  generally,  lived  in  an  atmos- 
phere charged  with  a  sense  of  the  immediacy  of 
spiritual  agencies,  which  the  present  age  with  its 
recognition  of  second  causes  and  its  belief  in  uni- 
form law  can  hardly  comprehend.  Around  each 
act  or  experience  of  life  played  the  power  of  God, 
helpful  or  punitive,  or  the  malice  of  the  devil. 
The  kingdoms  of  light  and  of  darkness  crossed  arms 
in  an  eternal  struggle,  of  which  the  manifestations 
were  not  inward  and  spiritual  only,  but  also  out- 
ward and  physical.  If  saints  protected,  witches 
brought   evil    to   man  and  beast   and   blasted    the 

^hopes    of    the    farmer    with    lightning    and    hail. 

(.  Luther  believed  that  his  mother  had  suffered  from 
the  machinations  of  these  agents  of  the  devil ;  in 
his  later  work  he  was  confident  of  opposition  from 
the  arch  fiend  himself ;  and  this  sense  of  the  im- 
mediateness  and  reality  of  the  contest  between  God 
and  Satan  was  characteristic  of  Luther  always. 

With  the  attainment  of  his  second  degree,  in 
January,  1505,  Luther's  course  of  general  intellect- 
ual discipline  was  completed,  and  he  had  arrived  at 
the  point  where  his  special  preparation  for  his  life- 
work  must  begin.  In  accordance  with  his  father's 
wishes,  he  commenced  the  study  of  law  ;  but  it  was 
little  to  the  taste  of  the  spiritually  burdened  young 
man.  Illness  and  nearness  to  death  by  accident 
had  deepened  his  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  life 


Luther  a  Monk.  83 

during  his  university  course  ;  the  violent  death  of  a 
companion  greatly  moved  him  soon  after  he  began 
the  study  of  law  ;  but  his  resolution  to  abandon  the 
lawyer's  career  and  to  devote  his  life  to  seeking 
salvation  was  determined  on  July  2,  1505,  six 
months  after  his  reception  of  the  Master's  degree. 
Returning  to  Erfurt  from  Mansfeld,  he  was  over- 
taken by  a  thunder  storm; 'and,  as  a  bolt  struck 
near  him,  oppressed  with  terror  for  his  sin-burdened 
soul  even  more  than  by  bodily  fear,  he  cried  out  to 
the  miners'  patron  saint,  whom  he  had  been  taught 
in  boyhood  to  honor  as  an  intercessor  with  a 
wrathful  God,  "Help,  dear  St.  Anna,  I  will  be  a 
monk."  Two  weeks  later,  on  July  17,  in  spite  of 
the  protests  of  his  friends  and  the  well-known 
opposition  of  his  father,  Luther  fulfilled  his  vow  by 
entering  the  convent  of  Augustinian  Hermits  at 
Erfurt  as  a  novice. 

The  monastery  into  which  Luther  was  received 
belonged  to  a  mendicant  order  which  had  been 
organized  by  the  union  of  several  small  religious 
bodies  through  the  efforts  of  Innocent  IV.  and  of 
Alexander  IV.  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was 
governed  by  a  constitution  erroneously  supposed  to 
be  the  work  of  its  patron,  St.  Augustine.  Having 
suffered  from  spiritual  decline,  like  other  monastic 
orders,  a  vigorous  restoration  of  the  German  por- 
tion of  the  society  to  its  original  strictness  of  life 
had  been  in  progress  during  the  later  years  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  a  "congregation  "  of  purified 
monasteries — of  which  that  at  Erfurt  was  one — had 
been  forjmed,  which,  from  1460  to   1503,  was  ruled 


84  The  Reformation. 

by  the  strenuous  vicar-general  Andreas  Proles  (1429- 
1503),  and  at  the  time  of  Luther's  entrance  on  the 
monastic  life  was  governed  by  Johann  von  Staupitz 
(?-i524),  to  whom  Luther  was  to  owe  much. 
Strenuously  mediaeval  in  its  general  conception  of 
the  way  of  salvation,  devoted  to  the  papacy  and  to 
the  service  of  the  Virgin,  it  was  characteristically  a 
studious  order,  and  its  members  were  encouraged 
to  acquaint  themselves  not  merely  with  later  scho- 
lastic theology,  but  with  the  Bible,  the  works  of 
St.  Augustine,  and  of  the  fathers  generally.  At 
the  same  time  the  order  was  marked  by  pastoral 
fidelity,  and,  in  some  of  its  members  at  least,  by 
much  sympathy  with  German  mysticism  such  as 
had  come  to  noble  expression  in  the  Rhine  valley 
during  the  fourteenth  century.  Naturally,  an  order 
such  as  this  enjoyed  high  repute  in  Germany,  and 
Luther  could  not  have  entered  any  fraternity  which 
would  have  shown  him  monastic  life  in  higher 
spiritual  attainment. 

Nor  was  there  anything  in  the  monastery  which 
he  had  entered  that,  at  first,  repelled  Luther's 
spirit.  The  search  for  an  answer  to  that  burdening 
question,  "How  can  I  become  religious  and  do 
enough  to  gain  a  gracious  God,"  had  driven  Luther 
into  the  monastery  ;  and  the  answer  that  the  mon- 
astery had  to  give  was  that  of  the  middle  ages  at  its 
best.  By  humiliations,  by  fastings,  by  labors,  by 
constantly  repeated  religious  exercises,  by  appeals 
to  the  Virgin  and  to  his  special  saintly  protectors, 
Luther  sought  the  peace  of  mind  for  which  he 
longed  ;  and   his  impulsive,  thoroughgoing   nature 


TJic  Way  of  Salvation.  85 

soon  made  him  the  most  eminent  in  the  convent 
for  devotion  to  its  characteristic  discipline.  "Could 
ever  a  monk  have  got  to  heaven  by  monkhood,"  he 
said  afterward,  "I  should  have  attained  it."  But 
the  much-desired  rest  of  spirit  did  not  come.  On 
the  contrary,  the  more  Luther  sought  for  it  by 
strictness  of  discipline,  the  more  his  burden  of 
petty  sins  seemed  to  weigh  him  down.  He  feared 
himself  deserted  of  God  ;  his  reading  raised  griev- 
ous questions  of  predestination.  And  had  it  not 
been  for  the  spiritual  help  of  his  books,  and  espe- 
cially of  some  of  his  associates  in  whom  glimpses  of 
evangelical  thought  were  mingled  with  the  usages 
of  the  existing  system,  as  had  often  been  the  case 
in  the  history  of  the  mediaeval  Church,  he  later 
believed  that  he  should  then  have  died  in  horror. 
The  writings  of  Bernhard,  of  Anselm,  even  of 
Augustine,  spoke  something  to  him  of  a  grace  that 
freely  forgives.  An  aged  monk  impressed  him 
with  the  thought  that  the  affirmation  of  the  Creed, 
"I  believe  ....  the  forgiveness  of  sins,"  was  a 
command  to  believe  that  his  own  sins  were  par- 
doned. The  same  thought  of  mercy  brought  out 
by  Bernhard  in  a  glowing  passage  enforcing  on  the 
reader  that  Christ  died  for  thee  comforted  him. 
Staupitz,  to  whom  he  freely  told  his  burdens, 
assured  him  that  he  did  not  understand  Christ. 
/'That  is  not  Christ,"  he  said  to  Luther's  portrayal 
of  the  punitive  Lord,  "for  Christ  does  not  terrify, 
He  only  consoles;"  and  Staupitz  also  made  plain 
to  him  that  repentance  is  a  state  of  mind  based  not 
on  fear,  but  flowing  forth  from  love  to  God,  rather 


86  TJie  Reformation. 

than  a  series  of  mental  acts  or  exercises.  But, 
above  all,  and  with  the  encouragement  of  Staupitz, 
Luther  diligently  read  the  Scriptures,  and  to  him 
they  gradually  showed  a  new  answer  to  his  question. 
It  was  characteristic  of  Luther  that  his  develop- 
ment was  slow.  He  did  not  jump  at  conclusions  ; 
and,  though  he  held  most  tenaciously  to  his  hard- 
won  positions  when  reached,  he  was  essentially  a 
conservative,  and  advanced  step  by  step  without 
perceiving  at  once  the  full  consequences  of  a  new 
conclusion.  (Gradually,  as  his  study  and  struggle 
went  on,  he  came  to  the  conviction  that  these 
external  efforts  after  rightness  in  the  sight  of  God 
were  valueless  ;  that  no  possession  or  attainment  of 
man  gives  standing  before  God  ;  and  that  justifica- 
tion is  a  divine  gift  received  through  faith  alone, 
the  beginning  of  a  new  life,  an  unmerited  redemp- 
tion from  the  power  and  consequences  of  sin. 
Faith  is  trust  in  God's  forgiveness,  for  the  sake  of 
Christ.  It  is  the  humble  renunciation  of  all  per- 
sonal merit.  Faith  is  itself  a  divine  gift,  a  making 
alive  of  the  spirit,  bestowed  without  antecedent 
good  works,  but  given  that  the  quickened  spirit 
may  bring  forth  good  works  as  its  natural  fruitage/^ 
What  Luther  did  was  to  break  away  from  the  cur- 
rent external  conceptions  of  religion  as  an  obedient 
conformity  to  a  great  corporate  system  of  life  and 
worship,  and  to  assert  the  primal  necessity  of  a 
new  and  individual  relation  of  the  heart  to  God, 
from  which  the  Christian  virtues  should  naturally 
flow.  His  conception  would  bring  God  and  the 
individual  sinner  into  a  connection  through  Christ 


Justification  by  Faith.  8y 

too  immediate,  personal,  and  full  of  good-will  on 
God's  part  to  leave  necessity  or  room  for  saintly 
intercessors.  To  Luther's  developing  thought, 
Christianity  came  to  seem  less  and  less  a  discipline 
laboriously  wrought  out  by  which  a  soul  is  gradually 
fitted  for  heaven,  and  more  and  more  a  new  life, 
based  on  a  new  attitude  of  the  soul  toward  God.) 
This  was  a  position  that  had  appeared  and  re- 
appeared in  the  thinking  of  the  mystics  ;  and  doubt- 
less Luther  derived  much  aid  from  their  writings. 
His  familiarity  with  Tauler's  sermons  is  well  known. 
But  Luther  was  too  active  by  nature  to  be  wholly  a 
mystic.  It  was  not  rest  in  God,  not  passivity  in 
God's  hands,  that  he  pictured  as  the  aim  of  the 
Christian  life,  but  strenuous,  active  service  flowing 
forth  from  the  new  relationship  which  faith  estab- 
lishes between  the  trusting  soul  and  its  Maker. 
For  Luther,  after  he  had  once  reached  it,  this 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  by  which  his 
burden  had  been  removed  became  the  central 
doctrine  of  the  Christian  faith.  He  would  make 
clearness  in  its  apprehension  the  test  of  a  rising  or 
a  falling  church.  Nay,  he  valued  the  books  of  the 
Scriptures  themselves  by  the  relative  definiteness 
with  which  they  taught  it. 

It  was  slowly  that  Luther  came  to  a  full  realiza- 
tion of  this  doctrine  and  its  consequences.  First 
dimly  apprehended,  perhaps,  in  1507  or  1508, 
when  he  had  been  two  years  or  more  an  in- 
mate of  the  monastery,  it  grew  clearer  to  his 
thought  year  after  year  as  he  studied  the  Scrip- 
tures, so  that  considerably  before  the  eventful  year 


The  Reformation. 


1 5 17  was  reached  it  appears  with  definiteness  in 
his  writings. 

While  Luther  was  passing  through  this  change  of 
view  as  to  the  way  of  salvation  he  was  rising  into 
prominence  in  the  order  of  which  he  was  a  member. 
In  1507  he  was  ordained  to  the  priesthood.  In 
November,  1508,  by  the  direction  of  Staupitz,  he 
left  the  monastery  at  Erfurt  to  take  up  the  work  of 
teaching  in  the  new  university  which  Elector  Fried- 
rich  the  Wise  of  Saxony  had  founded,  in  1502,  at 
Wittenberg — a  town  which,  though  the  elector's 
place  of  residence,  was  a  flat-lying,  rather  unhealth- 
ful,  ill-built  village  of  three  thousand  inhabitants. 
Wittenberg  possessed  an  Augustinian  monastery, 
and  the  university  was  essentially  an  Augustinian 
institution.  Not  having  completed  his  theological 
course,  Luther  at  first  taught  philosophy ;  but, 
during  1509,  he  was  admitted  to  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Theology,  which  entitled  the  recipient 
to  lecture  on  the  Bible,  and  to  that  of  Sententia- 
rius,  or  accredited  expounder  of  that  text-book  of 
mediaeval  theology,  the  Sentences  of  Peter  Lombard. 
His  new  work  at  Wittenberg  was  scarcely  begun, 
however,  when  the  commands  of  his  monastic 
superiors  sent  him  back  to  Erfurt,  where  he  taught 
in  the  university  for  a  year  and  a  half.  The  close 
of  1 5 10  saw  him  back  in  Wittenberg,  which  was  to 
be  his  home  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Controversies  in  the  order  to  which  he  belonged 
that  were  referred  to  the  papal  curia  for  decision 
led  to  Luther's  being  sent,  in  the  autumn  of  151 1, 
on  a  brief  mission  to  Rome.     The  warlike  Julius  11. 


Luther  a   Teacher.  89 

was  on  the  papal  throne,  Rome  was  in  the  height 
of  its  worldliness  ;  and  though  Luther  saw  not  a 
Httle  to  admire  in  the  skilful  discharge  of  business 
by  the  papal  government,  his  piety  was  shocked  by 
much  that  he  witnessed  and  heard.  The  old  and 
the  new  were  still  struggling  within  him.  He  vis- 
ited all  the  holy  places  ;  he  felt  that  masses  said 
in  the  sacred  city  inclined  God  in  a  peculiar  degree 
to  mercy  ;  but  as  he  painfully  climbed  the  sacred 
stairway  that  was  believed  to  be  that  on  which 
Pilate  showed  the  Son  of  Man  to  the  Jewish  rabble, 
the  words  of  the  Apostle,  as  he  long  afterward 
told  his  son  Paul,  rang  in  his  ears,  "  The  just  shall 
live  by  faith."  Yet  it  was  as  no  Protestant  that 
Luther  left  Rome.  His  piety  was  shocked,  but  he 
neither  rejected  the  hierarchy  nor  its  characteristic 
doctrines.  Years  afterward,  when  he  had  made  the 
breach,  the  recollection  of  what  he  had  seen  and 
heard  moved  him  to  many  an  attack  upon  a  system 
which  he  now  still  held  in  reverence. 

In  October,  15 12,  with  the  reception  of  the  de- 
gree of  Doctor  of  Theology,  Luther  entered  on  the 
full  duties  of  what  he  speedily  made  the  most 
influential  professorship  in  the  Wittenberg  Uni- 
versity. It  was  significant  of  the  new  thoughts 
that  were  working  in  him  that,  instead  of  lecturing 
on  dogmatic  theology,  as  was  customary  with  those 
who  had  attained  the  highest  theologic  degree,  he 
at  once  began  the  exposition  of  the  Scriptures, 
then  thought  to  be  within  the  competency  of  a 
Bachelor  in  Theology,  and  popularly  ranked  as 
inferior  in  labor  and  significance  to  the  formal  pres- 


go  The  Reformation. 

entation  of  a  dogmatic  system.  The  first  theme  of 
his  comment  was  the  Psalms.  The  primacy  of  the 
Scriptures  in  his  own  thought  was  thus  early  made 
evident ;  and  though  as  yet  he  had  no  quarrel  with 
the  mediaeval  Church  or  with  monasticism,  and 
though  his  method  of  interpretation  was  still  the 
allegorical,  so  beloved  of  the  middle  ages,  the  care- 
ful reader  of  his  lectures  readily  perceives  the  new 
thoughts  of  the  way  of  salvation  struggling  through 
the  scholastic  terminology  in  which  they  are  often 
clothed.  The  exposition  of  the  Psalms  was  fol- 
lowed, in  1 516,  by  that  of  Romans,  and  Galatians 
was  next  taken  up — in  itself  a  striking  testimony  to 
the  course  of  Luther's  thought.  With  the  exam- 
ination of  Romans  came  a  closer  study  of  Augus- 
tine, and,  by  the  autumn  of  15 16,  a  full  agreement 
with  the  teachings  of  the  great  Latin  father  as  to 
predestination  and  the  total  inability  of  the  natural 
man  to  please  God,  These  convictions  not  only 
strengthened  Luther's  feeling  that  faith  is  an 
unmerited  divine  gift,  but  convinced  him  that  the 
later  schoolmen  like  Occam  and  Biel,  whom  he  had 
valued,  were  Pelagian,  and,  therefore,  had  not  un- 
derstood the  Gospel.  He  had  never  had  much 
sympathy  with  the  older  realistic  schoolmen,  whose 
philosophy  had  been  opposed  by  the  teaching  of 
Erfurt  in  his  student  days.  With  this  discrediting 
of  his  favorite  schoolmen  came  a  feeling  of  dislike 
for  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  by  which  most  of 
the  teaching  of  the  middle  ages  had  been  formu- 
lated, and  these  conclusions  left  him  in  a  frame  of 
mind  ready  to  reject  such  parts  of  mediaeval  theology 


i 


Spiritual  Groiuth.  91 

as  did  not  agree  with  his  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures.  To  a  similar  hostility  toward  scholas- 
ticism Luther  had  won  his  colleagues  before  the 
Ninety-five  Theses  were  posted. 

Luther's  growth  through  these  formative  years 
was  even  more  one  in  piety  than  in  dogmatic  clear- 
ness of  conviction.  It  was  not  in  the  class-room 
only  that  he  was  beginning  to  move  men.  A  ser- 
mon preached  before  the  Saxon  elector  won  the 
good-will  of  his  prince  in  1512  ;  by  15 15,  the  town 
council  at  Wittenberg  had  formally  requested  his 
regular  ministrations.  Whether  preached  to  stu- 
dents and  fellow-monks  in  Latin  or  to  the  people  in 
the  German  tongue,  of  which  he  was  master  more 
than  any  contemporary,  his  sermons  impressed  men 
with  authority  and  power.  His  pastoral  zeal  was 
scarcely  less  conspicuous,  not  only  in  Wittenberg, 
but  from  15 15  onward  in  administration  of  the 
affairs  of  his  order  as  district  vicar  charged  with  the 
oversight  of  eleven  monasteries. 

Yet  because  Luther's  growth  had  been  in  inward 
and  experiential  conviction  as  to  the  way  of  salva- 
tion rather  than  in  dogmatic  conceptions,  he  com- 
bined his  new  consciousness  of  justification  by  faith 
alone,  and  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Scriptures,  with 
an  as  yet  unquestioning  allegiance  to  the  hierarchy, 
the  mediaeval  system  of  worship,  and  the  discipline 
of  the  monastic  order  of  which  he  was  a  member. 
It  was  the  externalism,  the  religious  superficiality, 
of  his  time  that  Luther  opposed  as  yet,  rather  than 
the  system  from  which  they  sprang.  But  contro- 
versy, should   it  arise,  could    not  fail  to  show  the 


92  The  Reformation. 

wider  bearings  of  the  principles  which  he  had 
reached.  A  call  to  apply  these  principles  to  one  of 
the  most  externalizing  features  of  the  religious  life 
of  the  day,  as  well  as  to  one  of  the  worst  of  ecclesi- 
astical abuses,  came  to  him  in  15 17. 

The  doctrine  of  indulgences  was  an  ancient  belief. 
Given  its  classic  form  by  Thomas  Aquinas,  it  as- 
serted that  true  penance  involved  contrition,  con- 
fession and  satisfaction.  This  latter  element  in  a 
proper  repentance  did  not  indeed  work  release  from 
the  eternal  condemnation  deserved  by  sin.  That 
pardon  God  alone  can  give.  /But  the  evil  effects  of 
sin  upon  character — the  temporal  consequences — 
must  be  repaired  by  disciplinary  good  works  done 
in  this  life  or  by  disciplinary  sufferings  here  or  in 
purgatory.  Yet  these  good  works  need  not  be  per- 
formed by  the  sinner  himself.  The  Church  has  a 
treasury  of  good  works,  filled  by  the  merits  of  Christ 
and  of  the  saints,  from  which  transfer  can  be  made  by 
the  properly  constituted  priesthood,  and  especially 
by  the  pope,  to  the  needy  sinner.  This  transfer  is 
effected  by  an  indulgence,  granted  on  such  terms 
as  those  having  a  right  to  bestow  it  may  impose, 
but  usually  on  condition  of  the  performance  of  some 
meritorious  work  like  a  pilgrimage,  prayers  at  some 
place  of  special  sanctity  or  during  some  propitious 
season,  or  a  money  contribution  for  a  worthy  cause 
such  as  the  building  of  a  church  or  a  war  against  un- 
believers. 

Such  a  doctrine  in  its  purest  state,  when  the 
necessity  of  contrition  for  the  reception  of  an  effec- 
tive indulgence  is  strenuously  asserted,  is  in  danger 


Indulgences.  93 

of  fastening  men's  attention  on  that  which  is  ex- 
ternal and  accidental  in  religion  to  the  practical  ig- 
noring of  that  which  is  inward  and  spiritual.  This 
danger,  always  inherent  in  the  doctrine,  had  been 
greatly  intensified  by  the  teaching  of  the  later  school- 
men that  an  imperfect  contrition — that  is,  simple 
fear  of  punishment — was  sufficient  for  an  acceptable 
penance  ;  and  for  two  centuries  at  least  before  the 
Reformation,  the  evils  of  indulgences  had  been  aug- 
menting by  their  shameless  misuse.  Indulgences 
came  to  be  a  large  source  from  which  the  papal 
treasury  was  filled.  Nor  did  popes  alone  employ 
this  means  of  raising  a  revenue.  The  Council  of 
Basel  issued  indulgences  in  its  financial  necessities. 
It  was  therefore  no  new  method  of  money  raising 
that  Julius  II.  employed  when,  in  1506,  he  offered 
indulgences  to  those  who  would  contribute  to  the 
rebuilding  of  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome. 
The  same  object  received  the  countenance  of  Julius's 
successor,  Leo  X.  The  distribution  and  sale — for 
that  it  practically  was — of  these  indulgences  was 
much  like  the  modern  trade  in  subscription  books. 
Agents  were  given  exclusive  territorial  rights,  and 
appointed  sub-agents  ;  and  both  were  paid  by  com- 
missions from  the  gains  of  their  labor.  So  largely 
was  the  matter  regarded  by  many  strong  churchmen 
as  a  financial  speculation  and  a  spiritual  hindrance 
that  Ximenes  opposed  the  sale  of  these  indulgences 
in  Spain  and  the  English  government  forbade  the 
transmission  of  funds  so  derived  from  England  to 
Rome.  In  Germany,  after  considerable  negotiation 
as  to  his  share  in  the  income,  Archbishop  Albrecht 


94  The  Reformation. 

of  Mainz  (ep.  1514-45),  obtained  the  right  of  sale 
for  the  territories  of  Mainz,  Magdeburg  and  Bran- 
denburg, and  employed  as  his  representative,  from 
September,  15 17,  onward,  an  experienced  agent, 
Johann  Tetzel  (c.  1450-1519).  Tetzel  was  a  thor- 
oughly worldly  and  avaricious  product  of  this  great 
abuse.  A  speaker  of  much  popular  effectiveness 
and  intent  on  the  largest  possible  sales,  he  pictured 
the  benefits  of  indulgences  for  the  living  in  the  most 
crass  and  external  fashion,  and  declared  regarding 
the  dead,  that  as  soon  as  the  money  rang  in  the 
chest,  the  soul  sprang  heavenward  out  of  purgatorial 
fires. 

To  one  who,  like  Luther,  had  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  forgiveness  of  sins  is  conditioned  on  a 
new  and  inward  attitude  of  the  soul  toward  God, 
such  preaching  by  Tetzel  and  others,  however  sanc- 
tioned by  usage,  seemed  the  offer  of  a  stone  to  those 
seeking  the  bread  of  life.  From  the  summer  of 
1 5 16  onward,  Luther  warned  his  hearers  in  repeated 
sermons  not  against  indulgences,  but  against  their 
abuse  as  hostile  to  true  inward  repentance.  With 
Tetzel's  approach  toward  Wittenberg,  in  the  autumn 
of  1 5 17,  Luther  determined  on  yet  more  positive 
opposition  ;  but  it  was  no  novel  or  unusually  dra- 
matic mode  of  attack  that  he  chose.  He  himself 
had  no  idea  of  the  future  significance  of  his  step. 
Weekly  religious  debates  were  the  custom  of  the 
theological  faculty  at  Wittenberg,  initiated  by  the 
posting  of  theses  for  discussion  ;  and  it  was  as 
carrying  out  this  usage  that  at  noon  on  October 
31,  1 5 17,  the  eve  not  only  of  the  great  festival  of 


The  Nineiy-five   Theses.  95 

All  Saints,  but  of  the  special  anniversary  which 
commemorated  the  dedication  of  the  building, 
Luther  posted  on  the  door  of  the  Castle  Church,  at 
Wittenberg,  the  famous  Ninety-five  Theses. 

Viewed  in  themselves,  the  first  thought  of  the 
modern  reader  is  one  of  astonishment  that  they 
should  have  been  the  spark  to  kindle  so  great 
a  revolution.  They  are  markedly  scholastic  in  form 
and  expression.  They  are  convinced  of  the  reality 
of  purgatory  ;  they^onHemn  those  who  deny  the 
right  of  the  pope  to  grant  indulgences  ;  they  are  no 
more  severe  in  their  criticisms  of  the  abuses  of  the 
system  than  the  writings  of  Johann  von  Wesel 
(?-i48i)  had  been  many  years  before.  But  an  ex- 
amination shows  the  attentive  reader  that  many 
thoughts  inconsistent  with  then  current  conceptions 
of  the  way  of  salvation  struggle  in  them  for  ex- 
pression. Penitence  is  a  life-long  state  of  the  soul, 
not  a  penitential  act.  Indulgence  reaches  only  to 
penalties  imposed  by  ecclesiastical  law.  The  truly 
repentant  soul  seeks  God's  discipline  rather  than 
avoids  it.  The  real  treasure  of  the  Church  is  not  a 
treasury  of  good  works,  but  the  Gospel  of  God's 
grace.  Every  Christian  who  feels  true  compunc- 
tion for  his  sins  has  full  remission  of  punishment  as 
well  as  of  guilt.  Every  Christian  shares  all  the  ben- 
efits of  Christ  and  of  the  Church.  These  were 
thoughts  that  carried  to  their  consequences — conse- 
quences then  all  unforeseen  as  yet  by  Luther — meant 
a  wide  breach  with  the  dogmatic  and  hierarchic  sys- 
tem that  stood  behind  the  conceptions  of  which  such 
trafific  as  that  of  Tetzel  was  an  illustration. 


96  The  Reformation. 

Luther's  theses  attracted  immediate  attention. 
The  hostility  to  the  Roman  curia,  widespread  in 
Germany,  gave  them  a  general  hearing.  Men  in 
the  most  various  circles — those  whose  piety  the 
traffic  in  indulgences  had  shocked,  the  humanists, 
the  opponents  of  scholastic  theology,  the  secular 
authorities  who  looked  with  dissatisfaction  on  the 
revenues  flowing  to  Rome — were  glad  that  Luther 
had  spoken.  But  to  range  themselves  openly  with 
him,  to  share  his  probable  condemnation,  was  quite 
another  matter  ;  and  even  his  friends  of  the  Witten- 
berg faculty  and  convent  and  of  Erfurt  student 
days  for  the  most  part  looked  askance.  Luther, 
though  widely  sympathized  with  in  secret,  stood  at 
first  almost  alone.  And  the  theses  aroused  power- 
ful enemies.  First  of  all  was,  of  course,  Tetzel — a 
man  of  some  prominence  in  the  Dominican  order — 
who  felt  not  merely  that  his  traffic  was  threatened, 
but  that  Luther  had  done  dishonor  to  the  teaching 
of  the  revered  theologian  of  the  Dominicans, 
Thomas  Aquinas.  Behind  Tetzel  stood  Conrad 
Wimpina  (c.  1461-1531),  an  eminent  professor  at 
Frankfort-on-the-Oder,  and,  more  powerful  than 
either,  a  gifted  teacher,  who  was  the  intellectual 
leader  of  the  University  of  Ingolstadt,  Johann 
Maier,  generally  known  by  the  name  of  his  birth- 
place, Eck  (1486-1543),  an  eminently  skilful,  if 
vain  and  arrogant,  theological  debater,  of  many 
brilliant  qualities  and  great  learning  and  fully  im- 
bued with  the  principles  of  the  later  schoolmen. 
With  these  leaders  stood  the  Dominican  order  gen- 
erally. 


Oppositio7i  Aroused.  97 

The  opposition  and  the  danger  was  enough  to 
have  frightened  any  man  not  of  the  most  steadfast 
courage  ;  but  Luther  held  firm,  and  answered  each 
of  his  opponents,  displaying  that  marvellous  pop- 
ular effectiveness  in  controversy  of  which  he  was 
master,  and  also  much  of  that  power  of  invective 
and  personal  abuse  in  which  he  was,  unfortunately, 
equally  pre-eminent.  But  his  blows  told.  Men  re- 
spected the  bold  fighter,  and  his  own  views  grew 
clearer  as  his  conception  of  the  consequences  of  his 
positions  enlarged. 

To  many  unthinking  observers,  however,  the 
whole  debate,  which  was  rapidly  arousing  all  theo- 
logical Germany,  seemed  a  monkish  squabble  be- 
tween representatives  of  rival  orders — a  view  to 
which  the  facts  that  Luther  was  an  Augustinian 
while  his  chief  opponents  were  Dominicans,  and 
that  these  orders  had  long  taken  somewhat  opposite 
positions  on  many  minor  theological  questions,  gave 
superficial  support.  This,  at  first,  was  the  opinion 
of  Leo  X.,  and  he  simply  directed  the  general  of 
the  Augustinians,  in  February,  15 18,  to  quiet 
Luther.  But  the  Master  of  the  Sacred  Palace  at 
Rome,  Silvestro  Mazzolini  of  Prieriao  (Prierias),  an 
energetic  Dominican  who  had  supported  Hoog- 
straten  in  opposition  to  Reuchlin,  attacked  Luther 
in  June,  15 18,  in  an  overbearing  but  carelessly  writ- 
ten pamphlet  warmly  defending  Tetzel,  asserting 
the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  in  whom  the  Church  he 
declared  to  be  virtually  embodied,  and  affirming 
that  whatever  the  Roman  Church  does  is  right. 

This  new  aspect  of  the  discussion  was  extremely 


98  The  Refor7natio7i. 

distasteful  to  Luther.  He  had  desired  no  quarrel 
with  Rome.  He  had  tried  to  believe  that  the  pope 
would  sympathize  with  his  denunciations  of  the 
abuse  of  indulgences.  In  his  defence  of  the  Theses 
— the  Resolutiones  of  May,  15 18 — he  had  declared 
that  he  would  submit  his  whole  contention  to 
Leo  X.,  and  listen  to  his  voice  as  that  of  Christ. 
But  now  that  a  high  official  of  the  papal  curia  had 
come  forward  as  his  antagonist,  he  courageously  met 
the  new  issue,  and  asserted,  in  opposition  to  Prie- 
rias's  laudation  of  the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  the 
infallibility  of  the  Word  of  God.  That  the  pope  is 
virtually  the  Church  Luther  vigorously  denied. 

In  the  same  month  in  which  Luther  answered 
Prierias,  on  August  7,  15 18,  he  received  a  summons 
to  appear  at  Rome  within  sixty  days  for  trial.  To 
go  was  to  be  condemned.  But,  fortunately  for 
Luther,  strong  influences  were  exercised  in  his 
favor.  His  university,  which  now  stood  in  sub- 
stantial accord  with  his  positions,  pleaded  for  him. 
His  sovereign,  the  influential  elector,  Friedrich  the 
Wise,  was  proud  of  the  university  which  was  grow- 
ing in  reputation  under  the  stimulus  of  Luther's 
rising  fame  in  Germany,  and  had,  moreover,  op- 
posed the  sale  of  indulgences  for  the  erection  of  St. 
Peter's  as  a  burden  on  his  subjects.  The  papal 
curia  was  anxious  to  raise  a  tax  from  Germany,  os- 
tensibly for  war  against  the  Turks,  and  felt  that 
German  princes  and  a  Reichstag  that  freely  uttered 
their  complaints  regarding  papal  financial  imposi- 
tions must  be  handled  with  caution  if  the  new  tax 
were  to  be  secured.     The  result  was  that  the  Saxon 


Luther  s  Peril.  99 

elector  obtained  for  Luther  the  substitution  of  a 
hearing  before  the  pope's  legate,  the  respected  Do- 
minican commentator  on  Aquinas,  Cardinal  Thomas 
de  Vio  of  Gaeta  (Cajetan,  1469-1534),  at  the  close 
of  the  Reichstag  at  Augsburg,  in  place  of  a  trial 
before  Prierias  and  other  judges  at  Rome.  Accord- 
ingly, Luther  arrived  in  Augsburg  in  October,  15 18, 
being  received  there  with  much  curious  interest  and 
some  sympathy,  for  the  Reichstag  had  been  free  in 
the  expression  of  its  dissatisfaction  with  the  finan- 
cial administration  of  the  papacy.  But  Luther's 
three  conferences  with  Cajetan  only  widened  the 
breach  between  the  reformer  and  Rome.  The  Car- 
dinal— a  theologian  of  European  repute — seems  to 
have  treated  the  case  as  one  simply  calling  for  re- 
traction on  Luther's  part  ;  while  Luther  urged  the 
authority  of  Scripture  for  his  positions.  Cajetan 
refused  to  receive  anything  but  a  full  submission  ; 
and  Luther  left  the  city  secretly  for  Wittenberg  lest 
a  heretic's  fate  should  be  his.  His  return  home  was 
soon  followed  by  a  significant  step — an  appeal  from 
the  pope  to  a  general  council.  Since  the  fourteenth 
century  there  had  been  theologians  in  abundance, 
like  those  of  Paris,  who  had  asserted  the  superiority 
of  a  general  council  over  the  pope.  Nothing  but 
condemnation  awaited  him  from  the  papacy,  even 
though  he  had  appealed  from  Cajetan  to  Leo  X.  on 
his  departure  from  Augsburg.  He  now  turned 
to  the  other  visible  authority  which  the  mediaeval 
Church  recognized.  But  what  chance  had  he  of  se- 
curing a  general  council  of  Christendom  ?  He  had 
small    expectation    that  his   life  would   be  spared. 


lOo  The  Reformation. 

Only  the  uncertain  favor  of  the  but  partially  sym- 
pathetic elector  stood  between  Luther  and  his  op- 
ponents ;  and  Luther  had  good  reason  to  fear  that 
Leo  X.  would  speedily  use  the  formidable  weapon 
of  interdict  against  all  places  that  sheltered  him. 
Yet  his  courage  was  unbending.  "  I  will  not  turn 
a  heretic,"  he  wrote  from  Augsburg  to  his  col- 
league, Carlstadt,  "by  revoking  the  opinion  which 
made  me  a  Christian.  I  will  rather  die,  be  burnt, 
be  exiled,  be  cursed." 

The  same  eventful  month  that  brought  Luther 
his  summons  to  Rome  witnessed  the  entrance  on 
his  professional  duties  at  Wittenberg,  on  August  29, 
15 18,  of  one  whose  name  was  thenceforth  to  be 
linked  with  that  of  Luther  as  a  leader  in  the  Saxon 
revolution,  and  whose  services  to  the  movement 
were  to  be  scarcely  less  conspicuous  than  those  of 
Luther  himself — Philip  Melanchthon.  A  short, 
slight,  boyish  figure  of  twenty-one,  his  first  appear- 
ance was  little  indicative  of  his  strength  ;  but  those 
who  heard  him  deliver  his  inaugural  address  on 
the  "Betterment  of  the  Studies  of  Youth,"  that 
August  day  in  Wittenberg,  realized  that,  young  as 
he  was  in  years,  the  speaker  had  no  living  superior 
as  a  humanist,  save  Erasmus  and  Reuchlin,  and 
that  he  held  forth  promise  of  service  as  a  reformer 
of  education  greater  than  they.  An  advanced  and 
religious-minded  humanist,  he  sympathized  with 
the  revolt  from  scholastic  methods  already  char- 
acteristic of  Wittenberg,  he  urged  the  duty  of  going 
back  of  the  fathers  to  the  Greek  and  Hebrew 
sources  of  theology,    and,   though   not   yet   a   re- 


Philip  Melanchthon.  loi 

ligious  reformer  at  the  time  of  his  coming,  his  open 
and  impressionable  mind  speedily  developed  under 
the  magnetism  of  Luther's  powerful  personality,  by 
the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  and  in  the  Wittenberg 
atmosphere,  without  any  severe  struggle  such  as 
had  come  to  Luther,  into  hearty  sympathy  with  the 
Lutheran  cause.  Almost  from  the  day  of  his 
arrival  at  Wittenberg  there  began  that  filial  and 
fraternal  relation  between  Luther  and  Melanchthon 
which  was  to  last,  in  spite  of  Luther's  violence  of 
temper  and  certain  differences  of  opinion,  till  they 
were  parted  by  death.  Never  were  two  men  more 
unlike  in  temperament ;  but  for  that  reason  they 
were  the  more  serviceable  each  to  the  other.  Me- 
lanchthon, shy,  scholarly,  learned,  clear-minded, 
courteous,  was  the  complement  of  the  bold,  im- 
petuous, fearless,  often  unguarded  Luther.  Neither 
could  have  done  the  other's  work  ;  together  they 
did  far  more  than  either  could  alone.  Luther  him- 
self admirably  expressed  the  contrast  between  their 
methods  in  a  common  service  : 

"I  am  rough,  boisterous,  stormy,  and  altogether 
warlike.  I  am  born  to  fight  against  innumerable 
monsters  and  devils.  I  must  remove  stumps  and 
stones,  cut  away  thistles  and  thorns,  and  clear  the 
wild  forests  ;  but  Master  Philip  comes  along  softly 
and  gently,  sowing  and  watering  with  joy,  accord- 
ing to  the  gifts  which  God  has  abundantly  be- 
stowed upon  him." 

It  was  not  the  least  of  the  good  fortunes  of  the 
Lutheran  movement  that  Melanchthon's  coming  to 
Wittenberg  and  entrance  into  sympathy  with  its 


I02  The  Reformation. 

aims  placed  a  scholar  in  charge  of  its  more  impor- 
tant publications  who  was  speedily  recognized  as 
without  a  superior  in  learning  in  Europe,  whom  all 
humanists  regarded  as  an  ornament  to  the  republic 
of  letters,  who  was  to  be  the  chief  organizer  of  the 
German  gymnasia,  the  director  of  their  curricula, 
the  writer  of  the  most  widely  used  text-books  for 
secondary  instruction  in  his  age,  whose  influence 
and  counsels  profoundly  modified  university  teach- 
ing, so  that  the  title  by  which  he  is  lovingly  re- 
membered is  that  of  Prceceptor  Germanics,  and  whose 
gifts,  character  and  learning  commanded  respect 
alike  from  those  who  approved  and  those  who  con- 
demned the  religious  doctrines  that  he  maintained. 
But  this  fame  and  usefulness  was  only  beginning 
when  Melanchthon  entered  on  his  work  at  Witten- 
berg in  August,  15 18. 

Philip  Schwartzerd  M^as  born  on  February  16, 
1497,  at  Bretten,  then  reckoned  to  the  Palatinate, 
but  now  a  town  of  Baden,  the  son  of  George  and 
Barbara  (Reuter)  Schwartzerd.  His  father,  who 
died  when  Philip  was  but  ten  years  of  age,  was  an 
expert  maker  of  armor.  His  mother,  and  his 
maternal  grandmother,  upon  whom  much  of  his 
early  training  came,  were  the  niece  and  sister  of 
Reuchlin.  Guided  by  Reuchlin's  advice,  the  boy 
entered  the  excellent  classical  school  at  Pforzheim 
in  1507;  and,  at  Reuchlin's  suggestion,  following  a 
custom  then  prevalent  among  scholars,  he  substi- 
tuted for  his  German  family  name  its  Greek  equiva- 
lent, Melanchthon.  The  year  1509  saw  the  pre- 
cocious student  at  the  University  of  Heidelberg, 


Philip  Melanchthon.  103 

where,  though  largely  self-taught,  he  developed 
great  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  clas- 
sics, a  brilliant  Latin  style,  and  a  good  deal  of  facility 
in  poetic  composition.  At  Heidelberg  he  became 
a  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  15 11.  But  on  the  refusal  of 
that  university  to  graduate  him  Master  of  Arts  in 
15 12,  by  reason  of  his  youth,  Melanchthon  removed 
to  Tubingen,  where  he  received  the  degree  in 
January,  15 14.  His  second  graduation  ushered 
him  into  his  life  work  as  a  teacher  and  a  writer. 
He  lectured  at  Tubingen  on  Virgil,  Terence,  Livy 
and  Cicero  ;  he  published  a  Greek  grammar  and 
one  or  two  editions  of  Latin  classics  ;  he  read  proof 
for  the  publisher,  Thomas  Anshelm  ;  he  edited  a 
universal  history.  Erasmus  praised  the  young 
humanist  in  the  annotations  to  his  epoch-making 
edition  of  the  New  Testament.  He  was  regarded 
as  the  most  promising  -classical  scholar  in  Germany. 
His  fame  brought  him  a  call  to  a  professorship  at 
the  University  of  Ingolstadt — an  institution  domi- 
nated by  the  strong  personality  of  Eck,  much  as 
Wittenberg  was  by  that  of  Luther ;  but  on  the 
advice  of  Reuchlin,  who  had  no  love  for  the  Domin- 
icans there  in  power,  he  declined  it.  The  same 
friendly  adviser  suggested  his  name  for  Wittenberg, 
doubtless  because  of  the  favor  there  shown  to  the 
new  learning,  when  the  Saxon  elector  sought  a 
professor  of  Greek  ;  and  so  Melanchthon,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  entered  the  faculty  which  he  was 
to  adorn  till  his  death  in  1560.  The  appointment 
was  at  once  justified  by  its  results.  Within  a  year, 
and   largely   through    the  fame  of    Melanchthon's 


104  The  Reformation. 

teaching,  the  roll  of  students  at  Wittenberg 
doubled  ;  and  this  was  but  the  beginning  of  the 
growth  of  the  university,  where  this  accomplished 
scholar  taught  Hebrew,  Greek  and  Latin,  rhetoric, 
physics  and  philosophy,  and  where,  above  all,  from 
1 5 19  onward,  he  expounded  the  Scriptures  and 
proved  himself  a  master  in  theology,  though  never 
ordained  to  the  ministry  nor  willing  to  wear  a 
higher  scholastic  degree  in  divinity  than  the  primary 
grade  of  Bachelor  of  Theology,  which  he  attained 
in  September  of  the  year  just  mentioned. 

Great  was  the  danger  in  which  Luther  stood  in 
the  autumn  of  15 18;  but  now,  as  was  to  be  the 
case  so  often  in  the  history  of  the  Reformation, 
political  considerations  overbore  religious  interests 
and  worked  to  his  advantage.  Through  those  au- 
tumn months  the  enfeebled  Emperor  Maximilian 
was  seeking  to  make  certain  the  choice  of  his  grand- 
son, Charles  of  Spain,  as  his  successor  to  the  im- 
perial throne,  and  the  sudden  death  of  Maximilian 
on  January  12,  15 19,  served  but  to  perplex  an  in- 
volved situation  that  was  not  relieved  till  Charles 
became,  by  election.  Emperor  Charles  V.  on  the 
twenty-eighth  of  the  following  June.  In  this 
troubled  time  no  German  prince  seemed  more  im- 
portant for  the  success  of  the  pope's  endeavors  to 
prevent  too  great  a  growth  of  Spanish  power  in 
Italy  and  to  influence  the  German  election  to  that 
end  than  Elector  Friedrich  of  Saxony.  Friedrich 
was  far  from  being  a  convinced  Lutheran  ;  but  he 
sympathized  with  many  of  Luther's  criticisms  of 
the  papacy,  and  was  loath  to  see  the  pope  stretch 


Papal  Negotiations.  105 


forth  his  power  against  a  popular  professor  in  his 
beloved  University  of  Wittenberg.  Such  a  political 
force  was  one  for  the  pope  to  conciliate  rather  than 
to  anger ;  and  hence,  instead  of  issuing  the  dreaded 
bull  of  excommunication,  Leo  X.  sent  his  Saxon- 
born  chamberlain,  Karl  von  Miltitz,  with  a  golden 
rose  for  the  elector  and  a  diplomatic  proposition  for 
the  offending  monk.  Though  Miltitz  found  popu- 
lar sympathy  with  Luther's  criticisms  of  ecclesias- 
tical abuses  much  more  widespread  than  he  had 
anticipated,  for  Luther's  sturdy  opposition  was  fast 
winning  Saxony,  and  indeed  Germany  generally,  to 
its  support,  his  mission  was  measurably  successful. 
Tetzel  he  largely  sacrificed,  repudiating  his  ex- 
tremer  statements.  Luther  he  persuaded  to  agree 
that  the  questions  in  debate  should  be  submitted  to 
the  judgment  of  a  German  bishop,  to  express  his 
dutiful  recognition  of  the  Roman  Church  and  of  the 
pope  as  its  head,  to  endeavor  to  heal  the  com- 
motion by  a  public  declaration,  and  to  hold  silence, 
provided  his  opponents  would  refrain  from  contro- 
versy. Luther  was  still  ready  to  declare  himself  a 
Roman  Christian,  though  Miltitz  failed  utterly  to 
bring  him  to  retract  his  characteristic  positions. 

Such  an  agreement  as  this  of  January,  15 19,  was, 
of  course,  impossible  of  complete  execution,  though 
Luther  made  the  public  declaration,  and,  in  March, 
sent  a  most  humble  letter  to  Leo  X.  Discussion 
could  not  be  prevented.  Eck  and  Luther's  rash 
and  injudicious  colleague,  Carlstadt,  had  already  ar- 
ranged  a  public  disputation  to  take  place  at  Leipzig, 
and  Luther  soon  found  that  Eck's  attack  was  to  be 


io6  The  Reformation. 

directed  primarily  against  himself  and  was  to  in- 
volve the  authority  of  the  papacy.  Luther,  there- 
fore, declined  to  appear  before  the  archbishop  of 
Trier,  as  had  been  agreed  with  Miltitz,  and  armed 
himself  by  vigorous  historical  study  for  the  new 
contest.  In  this  study,  carried  on  amid  the  daily 
labors  of  the  class-room,  the  publication  of  his  lec- 
tures on  the  Psalms  and  the  preparation  of  his  Com- 
mentary on  Galatians,  Luther  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  supremacy  of  the  papacy  was  a 
doctrine  of  comparatively  recent  origin  ;  that  the 
Church,  not  its  officers,  is  the  seat  of  ecclesiastical 
power  ;  and  that  the  Church  is  the  communion  of 
saints,  the  whole  number  of  Christian  believers, 
rather  than  the  hierarchy.  These  conclusions  mark 
a  radical  advance  in  Luther's  thought,  the  far- 
reaching  consequences  of  which  the  Leipzig  dispu- 
tation was  first  to  make  plain  to  him. 

On  June  24,  15 19,  the  Wittenberg  champion, 
Carlstadt,  accompanied  by  Luther,  Melanchthon, 
Nikolaus  von  Amsdorf  (1483-1565),  Johann  Agri- 
cola,  Luther's  secretary  (1494?-!  566),  and  some  two 
hundred  friendly  Wittenberg  students  entered  Leip- 
zig, whither  the  fame  of  the  contest  had  attracted 
many  visitors.  On  June  27  the  debate  began,  be- 
fore Duke  Georg  of  Saxony,  in  a  great  hall  of  the 
Pleissenburg,  the  subject  discussed  being  that  of 
free  will.  Carlstadt  did  himself  no  credit.  As  a 
debater  he  was  no  match  for  Eck,  and  the  latter 
felt  that  victory  was  with  him  as,  on  July  4,  15 19, 
he  began  the  far  more  irriportant  discussion  with 
Luther  on  the  papacy.     Eck  was  no  niean  contro- 


The  Leipzig  Disputation.  107 

versialist.  His  purpose  was  to  force  Luther  to  the 
open  adoption  of  positions  hitherto  universally 
recognized  as  heretical,  to  show  him  to  the  world  as 
a  heretic,  and  hence  to  bring  upon  him  general  con- 
demnation. And,  from  his  point  of  view,  Eck  was 
conspicuously  successful.  Luther  had  already  af- 
firmed in  theses  preparatory  to  the  debate  that  the 
superiority  of  the  Roman  Church  over  all  others  was 
a  recent  doctrine,  contrary  to  the  Scriptures  and  to 
the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Nicsea.  He  was  now 
led  on  to  declare  that,  in  condemning  the  views  of 
Huss  regarding  the  Church,  the  Council  of  Constance 
had  condemned  truth.  This,  though  but  the  logi- 
cal outcome  of  the  direction  in  which  Luther's 
thoughts  had  been  moving,  was  a  most  radical 
utterance.  Men  had  denied  the  superiority  of  the 
pope  over  a  general  council  and  remained  good 
Catholics  ;  but  this  denial  was  far  more. 

To  reject  at  once  the  authority  of  the  papacy  and 
of  general  councils  was  to  break  with  the  whole 
mediaeval  hierarchical  system.  It  left  the  sole  ulti- 
mate authority  the  Scriptures  ;  and,  moreover,  the 
Scriptures  interpreted  by  private  judgment,  since 
it  was  in  reliance  on  the  sufficiency  of  his  own 
private  judgment  that  Luther  decided  that  that 
ultimate  interpreter  of  doctrine,  as  the  middle  ages 
believed — a  general  council — had  erred. 

And  Luther's  position  was  as  bold  as  Eck's 
strategy  was  keen  ;  for  the  council  whose  decision 
he  had  rejected  was  that  honored  Council  of  Con- 
stance, held  on  German  soil  and  un<ier  a  German 
emperor,  and  the  opinion  he  had  approved  was  that 


io8  The  Reformatio7i. 

of  Huss,  whose  memory,  however  respected  in 
Bohemia,  was  then  regarded  in  Saxony  with  utmost 
aversion.  No  wonder  Eck  declared  that  one  so 
heretical  as  to  admit  that  a  general  council  could 
err  was  to  him  a  heathen  and  a  publican.  Eck 
believed  victory  to  be  his,  and  that  all  he  needed  to 
do  to  secure  its  fruits  was  to  crystallize  the  results 
of  Leipzig  in  the  papal  bull  of  condemnation  which 
in  January,  1520,  he  went  to  Rome  to  procure. 

But  the  real  result  was  far  other  than  Eck 
imagined.  The  Leipzig  dispute  freed  Luther  from 
all  remaining  attachment  to  the  mediaeval  hierarchi- 
cal system  ;  it  led,  furthermore,  to  an  alliance 
between  Luther  and  the  younger  humanists  like 
Crotus  and  Hutten,  from  whom  he  had  hitherto 
held  aloof.  The  contest  still  seemed  to  him  vitally 
and  essentially  a  religious  question  ;  but  it  assumed 
far  larger  proportions  in  his  eyes.  It  was  no  longer 
a  battle  for  the  repression  of  certain  abuses  and  the 
toleration  of  certain  views  of  the  way  of  salvation 
within  the  Roman  Church  ;  it  rose  on  Luther's 
vision  as  a  gigantic  national  struggle  for  freedom 
from  the  papacy  and  all  that  that  institution  repre- 
sented— a  revolution  in  which  the  nation  should 
cast  off  the  fetters  which  had  bound  its  religious 
life  for  centuries.  And  for  this  view  he  found 
abundant  sympathizers. 

There  was  much,  indeed,  in  the  political  situation 
as  well  as  in  the  religious  condition  of  Germany  to 
make  such  a  revolutionary  effort  seem  timely.  To 
the  chronic  unrest  already  spoken  of  had  been 
added  the  excitement  of  an  election  in  which  the 


Luther s  New  Attitude.  I09 

kings  of  Spain,  of  France,  and  even  of  England, 
had  put  themselves  forward  as  candidates  for  the 
vacant  imperial  throne.  The  choice  had  fallen, 
while  Eck  and  Carlstadt  were  opening  the  debate 
at  Leipzig,  on  Charles.  Lord  already  of  Spain,  of 
Spain's  possessions  in  Italy  and  America,  of  the 
Netherlands  and  of  the  territories  of  the  house  of 
Austria,  the  youth  of  nineteen  thus  raised  to  the 
most  august  if  not  the  most  powerful  throne  in 
Christendom  seemed  to  have  possibilities  before 
him  such  as  had  come  to  no  ruler  since  Charle- 
magne. Might  he  not  put  himself  at  the  head  of 
a  great  movement  to  throw  off  the  yoke  from 
Avhich,  as  it  seemed  to  Luther,  Christendom  had 
long  suffered  ?  Might  he  not  be  moved  to  oppose  a 
pope  that  had  tried  to  defeat  his  own  election  and 
advance  the  interests  of  his  rival.  King  Francis  L  of 
France?  Under  him  might  not  Germany  take  on  a 
fuller  national  life  ?  These  were  natural  hopes  at 
the  time.  Charles  was  little  known.  But  could 
Luther  have  looked  within  the  firm  and  forceful 
spirit  that  was  hid  behind  the  pale  face  of  the  young 
emperor  he  would  have  found  little  to  encourage 
him.  Charles  was,  indeed,  a  reformer ;  but  it  was 
of  the  Spanish  type  of  his  grandmother  Isabella  of 
Castile.  He  could  see  in  Luther  nothing  but  a 
heretic.  And  to  his  keen  governmental  sense  it 
seemed  that  the  political  unity  of  the  unlike  lands 
over  which  fate  had  made  him  ruler  demanded  unity 
in  religion.  In  15 19  and  1520,  however,  this  rev- 
elation of  character  was  still  largely  in  the  future, 
and   Luther   with   many  another  in   Germany  felt 


no  The  Refo7'77iation. 

that  infinite  possibilities  lay  in  the  newly  inaugu- 
rated reign. 

Luther's  development  after  the  Leipzig  disputa- 
tion was  rapid.  Convinced  from  the  Scriptures  and 
the  history  of  the  Greek  Church  that  subjection  to 
the  papacy  was  no  necessary  condition  of  the 
Church's  existence,  and  that  Christ  is  the  Church's 
only  head,  he  now  reached  the  conclusion  that  the 
Church,  properly  speaking,  is  the  invisible  com- 
munion of  believers,  and  that  its  presence  is  evi- 
denced not  by  subjection  to  a  visible  government, 
but  by  the  presence  of  baptism,  the  Lord's  Supper 
and  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  At  the  same 
time  the  Scriptural  test  led  him  to  question  the 
doctrine  of  purgatory,  and  to  reject  the  Roman 
enumeration  of  the  Sacraments  as  seven.  He  came 
now  to  a  full  appreciation  of  the  work  of  Huss, 
with  whom  he  was  surprised  to  find  himself  largely 
in  sympathy.  Melanchthon,  too,  during  these 
months  had  advanced  to  the  position  that  the 
^Scriptures  are  the  test  of  the  truth  of  the  fathers 
and  councils,  not  the  fathers  and  councils  the  infal- 
lible interpreters  of  the  Word  of  God,  and,  apply- 
ing this  test,  had  come  to  reject  some  of  the  most 
characteristic  Roman  doctrines  such  as  transubstan- 
tiation.  Strengthened  thus  by  the  sympathy  of  his 
colleagues,  by  the  active  support  of  Hutten  and  the 
younger  humanists,  and  by  the  ever-rising  favor  of 
the  people  of  Germany,  Luther  was  emboldened  to 
meet  the  pope's  bull  which  rumor  said  was  soon  to 
be  launched  against  him  by  three  powerful  revolu- 
tionary treatises  which  belong  to  the  most  impor- 
tant monuments  of  the  Reformation  age. 


Thi^ee  Great   Tracts.  1 1 1 


The  first  of  these  pamphlets,  written  in  June  and 
July,  1520,  and  entitled  An  den  christliche7i  Add 
deutscher  Nation  :  voji  des  christlichen  Standes  Bes- 
serung,  is  a  fiery  appeal  to  the  German  princes  to 
take  the  reformation  of  the  German  Church  into 
their  own  hands,  and  a  vindication  of  the  rights  of 
the  laity  in  the  Church  against  the  claims  of  the 
hierarchy.  As  with  a  trumpet-call,  Luther  voices 
the  years-long  rankling  sense  of  the  injustice  of  the 
papal  government  in  its  dealings  with  Germany,  and 
summons  the  lay  leaders  to  the  assumption  of  their 
rights  as  Christians  and  to  the  purification  of  the 
Church.  In  the  strongest  language  he  asserts  the 
priesthood  of  all  believers,  the  first  of  the  "  Roman 
walls"  to  be  overthrown  being  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  "  spiritual  "  and  the  "  temporal  "  estates. 
"All  Christians,"  he  declares,  "are  truly  of  the 
spiritual  estate,  and  there  is  no  difference  among 
them,  save  of  ofifice  alone."  Religious  things  are 
the  province  of  no  one  order  of  society.  No  less 
clearly  does  he  assert  the  supremacy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures over  all  interpretations  or  commands  of  those 
in  ecclesiastical  authority.  It  is  evident  that  so  tre- 
mendous and  radical  a  document  must  have  met 
answer  in  thousands  who  had  not  yet  found  expres- 
sion, or  its  very  vehemence  would  have  robbed  it  of 
its  force.  But  it  is  much  more  than  a  mere  criticism 
of  existing  abuses.  It  presents  a  programme  for  ac- 
tion. Temporal  concerns  belong  to  temporal  rulers  ; 
a  German  national  church  should  be  guided  by  the 
primate  of  Germany  ;  ministers  should  be  chosen 
by  the  communities   that  they  serve  ;  priestly  celi- 


1 1 2  The  Reformation. 

bacy  should  be  no  longer  required  ;  burdensome 
festivals  should  be  reduced  in  number  ;  the  univer- 
sities reformed  ;  mendicant  monasticism  should  be 
restricted  ;  limitation  of  beggary  and  proper  care  of 
the  poor  should  be  secured.  Written  in  German, 
by  a  master  of  controversial  appeal  and  invective, 
under  the  impulse  of  a  burning  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  his  cause,  no  wonder  that  four  thousand 
copies  were  sold  within  a  few  days  of  its  publication 
in  August,  1520,  and  that  it  soon  ran  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land. 

Two  months  later  Luther  followed  this  flaming 
revolutionary  brand  with  an  equally  radical  presen- 
tation of  his  doctrinal  criticisms  of  Rome  ;  this  time 
in  Latin,  and  designed  for  more  scholarly  eyes — the 
De  Captivitate  Babylonica  Ecclesice  Pr(Bludium.  That 
captivity  is  the  bondage  of  the  Church  through  the 
mediaeval  interpretation  and  multiplication  of  the 
sacraments.  Confirmation,  orders,  unction  and  mat- 
rimony are  not  sacraments  at  all.  That  title  be- 
longs only  to  baptism,  the  Lord's  Supper  and  pen- 
ance ;  and  penance  is  a  "return  to  baptism" — a 
renewal  of  the  faith  to  which  baptism  witnesses — 
rather  than  a  "second  plank  after  shipwreck." 
Sacraments  in  themselves  are  not  works  of  value, 
there  is  no  opus  operatiini  quality  in  them.  They 
are  the  divine  promises  to  us  of  the  remission  of 
sins,  and  hence  their  benefit  is  to  be  received  by 
faith.  The  Supper  is  no  sacrifice  ;  freedom  should 
be  allowed  to  the  laity  to  partake  of  the  cup  as  well 
as  of  the  bread  ;  and  Luther  clearly  exhibits  his 
preference  for  the  view  of  Christ's  presence,  later 


Th7'ee  Great   Tracts.  1 1 3 

known  as  consubstantiation,  to  which  non:iinalistic 
theology  had  ah'cady  inclined,  though  he  would 
grant  freedom  to  any  who  preferred  the  theory  of 
transubstantiation  which  Aquinas  had  made  classic 
in  the  Roman  Church.  The  Address  to  the  German 
Nobles  had  dealt  chiefly  with  abuses  of  ecclesiastical 
administration.  The  Babylonish  Captivity  was  con- 
cerned with  matters  of  doctrine.  But  they  were 
doctrines  of  immense  practical  importance  that  his 
radical  discussion  touched.  Luther's  treatment  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  and  of  orders,  for  example,  at- 
tacked the  whole  Roman  theory  of  propitiatory 
masses  offered  to  God  by  a  priest  possessing  spiritual 
powers  that  no  layman  could  share.  It  challenged 
not  merely  the  most  central  act  of  Roman  public 
worship,  but  the  very  existence  of  a  priesthood  as 
distinguished  from  a  ministry.  It  affirmed  that 
preaching  is  the  prime  ministerial  duty,  and  "  that 
the  sacrament  of  orders  can  be  nothing  else  than  a 
ceremony  for  choosing  preachers  in  the  Church." 

It  is  illustrative  of  the  deep,  spiritual  springs  of 
Luther's  stormy  life  during  these  autumn  months 
of  1520,  that,  after  he  knew  that  the  pope's  bull 
against  him  had  been  issued,  he  wrote  in  German 
and  in  Latin  the  calm,  almost  mystical,  exposition 
of  his  faith  which  appeared  in  November  of  that 
year — the  De  Libertate  Christiana.  To  it,  at  the 
request  of  Miltitz,  who  still  hoped  for  a  reconcilia- 
tion, Luther  prefixed  a  letter  to  Leo  X.,  expressing 
great  personal  respect  for  the  pope,  but  unqualified 
aversion  to  the  Roman  curia.  "  I  have  always 
grieved,"  wrote  he,  "  that  you,  most  excellent  Leo, 


1 14  The  Reformaitojt. 

who  were  worthy  of  a  better  age,  have  been  made 
pontiff  in  this.  For  the  Roman  court  is  not  worthy 
of  you  and  those  like  you,  but  of  Satan  himself, 
who,  in  truth,  is  more  the  ruler  in  that  Babylon  than 
you  are."  In  the  tract  itself  Luther  lays  down  the 
paradox  of  Christian  experience  :  "A  Christian  man 
is  the  most  free  lord  of  all  and  subject  to  none  ;  a 
Christian  man  is  the  most  dutiful  servant  of  all  and 
subject  to  every  one."  He  is  free  in  the  inward 
man  because  justified  by  faith,  no  longer  judged  by 
the  law,  given  the  power  to  serve  God,  and  so 
united  in  spiritual  marriage  to  Christ  that  Christ's 
life  and  salvation  are  his,  making  him  a  king  and  a 
priest  unto  God.  He  is  a  servant  in  the  outward 
man  through  love,  because  he  must  bring  his  body 
into  subjection  to  his  regenerated  spirit  and  aid  his 
fellow-men.  As  a  servant  he  does  good  works  ;  but 
they  are  no  part  of  the  price  of  his  salvation,  they 
are  its  consequences. .  "  Good  works  do  not  make  a 
good  man,  but  a  good  man  does  good  works. "  "A 
Christian  man  does  not  live  in  himself,  but  in  Christ 
and  in  his  neighbor,  or  else  is  no  Christian  ;  in  Christ 
by  faith,  in  his  neighbor  by  love." 

When  this  tract  was  written  the  pope's  ban 
against  Luther  had  reached  Germany.  Prepared  by 
Eck,  Cajetan,  Aleander,  Prierias,  and  others,  it  con- 
demned forty-one  statements  of  Luther,  and  gave 
him  sixty  days  in  which  to  recant,  on  penalty  of 
treatment  as  an  obstinate  heretic.  All  who  had 
Luther's  books  were  ordered  to  cease  their  use  and 
the  obnoxious  publications  were  to  be  publicly 
burned.  Any  place  where  he  might  stay  was  threat- 


The  Papal  Bull.  \  1 5 


ened  with  the  prohibition  of  all  religious  services. 
All  adherents  of  the  Church  were  ordered  to  arrest 
Luther  and  his  followers  and  send  them  to  Rome. 
To  Eck,  as  papal  nuncio,  was  given  the  task  of  pub- 
lishing the  bull  in  north  Germany.  No  more  un- 
fortunate choice  could  have  been  made  ;  for,  to 
many  in  Germany,  it  seemed  like  peculiar  and  un- 
warranted vindictiveness  that  a  theological  disputant 
should  thus  follow  up  an  open  opponent  in  public 
debate.  Nor  did  Eck  have  much  success  in  Saxony. 
Luther's  work  had  told.  In  Mainz,  Cologne,  Lou- 
vain,  and,  nearer  by,  in  Ingolstadt,  Merseburg, 
Meissen  and  Brandenburg  the  bull  was  duly  pub- 
lished ;  but  at  Leipzig  the  students  tore  it  from  the 
walls,  and  at  Erfurt  and  Wittenberg  the  universities 
refused  its  publication.  Aleander  presented  the  bull 
to  Elector  Friedrich  the  Wise  at  Cologne  and  urged 
its  enforcement  upon  him  ;  but  Erasmus,  whom  he 
consulted,  so  little  approved  the  bull  that  the  elector, 
believing  that  Luther  had  not  had  an  adequate  hear- 
ing, paid  no  further  heed  to  Aleander's  entreaties, 
and  Luther  continued  to  enjoy  the  favor  of  his 
princely  protector. 

Emboldened  by  these  evidences  of  support  and 
aroused  by  the  burning  of  his  own  writings  in  sev- 
eral German  cities,  Luther  and  his  friends  soon  after 
took  the  most  dramatic  and  popularly  impressive 
method  of  manifesting  their  separation  from  the 
papacy  and  their  rejection  of  the  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tem of  which  it  was  the  head.  On  December  10, 
1520,  at  a  formally  announced  time  and  place  in 
Wittenberg,  and  with  the   consenting  presence  of 


1 1 6  The  Reformation. 

his  colleagues  and  pupils,  Luther  burned  the  pope's 
bull,  the  papal  decretals  and  the  canon  law.  This 
step  had  the  approval  of  the  people  of  the  region  as 
a  whole,  and  was  not  opposed  by  the  local  authori- 
ties. It  was  evident,  therefore,  that  a  considerable 
section  of  Germany  was  in  open  rebellion  against  the 
papacy,  and  that  this  rebellion  had  won  wide  sym- 
pathy ;  how  wide  no  man  could  say.  Such  a  state 
of  affairs  could  not  fail  to  demand  official  cognizance 
at  the  next  session  of  the  Reichstag,  for  it  touched 
the  foundations  of  the  imperial  constitution. 

That  Reichstag,  the  first  to  be  held  under  the 
presidency  of  Charles  V.,  opened  at  Worms  on  Jan- 
uary 28,  1 52 1.  Its  tasks  were  manifold.  The  prob- 
lems of  internal  politics  raised  by  a  new  reign 
had  to  be  adjusted,  the  administration  demanded 
revision  by  the  new  ruler  ;  above  all,  preparation  had 
to  be  made  for  the  great  war  with  France  which 
all  men  knew  that  the  ambitions  of  the  youthful 
Charles  V.  and  Francis  I.,  no  less  than  the  rivalry 
between  France  and  Spain  for  the  control  of  Italy, 
rendered  inevitable — a  rivalry  that  had  begun  in 
1494,  and  was  to  affect  the  whole  Reformation  age. 
But  greater  than  any  of  these  important  questions 
in  the  interest  which  it  excited  was  the  disposition 
to  be  made  of  Luther.  The  papal  nuncio  repre- 
sented that  as  Luther  had  already  been  declared  a 
heretic  by  the  pope,  the  only  duty  of  the  Reichstag 
was  to  enforce  the  bull  which  had  called  on  all 
Christians  to  arrest  Luther  and  send  him  to  Rome. 
To  many  of  the  members  of  the  Reichstag,  on  the 
contrary,  the  papal  demand  appeared  an  undue  in- 


Luther  at    Worms.  1 1  7 

terference  with  the  rights  of  the  empire,  and  Luther 
seemed  never  to  have  been  adequately  heard  by  his 
ecclesiastical  judges  in  his  own  defence  ;  they  sym- 
pathized with  his  criticisms  of  the  papal  administra- 
tion and  believed  that  he  might,  if  brought  before 
the  Reichstag,  retract  his  extremer  attacks  on  the 
divine  establishment  of  the  papacy  and  the  in- 
fallibility of  the  councils  while  serving  as  an  agent 
to  correct  the  more  flagrant  abuses  of  the  papal  gov- 
ernment. Between  the  two  views  the  young  em- 
peror wavered,  not  doubting  that  Luther  was  a 
damnable  heretic,  but  willing  to  make  some  use  of 
him  as  a  whip  to  force  the  pope  to  support  the 
Spanish  side  in  the  politics  of  the  day,  and  to  pre- 
vent papal  interference  with  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion, or  even  to  secure  an  improvement  in  German 
ecclesiastical  conditions  similar  to  that  effected  by 
Ferdinand,  Isabella  and  Ximenes  in  the  Spanish 
peninsula.  Finally,  on  March  6,  1521,  as  a  great 
concession  to  one  already  pronounced  a  heretic,  an 
imperial  command  and  promise  of  safe-conduct  suni- 
moned  Luther  to  appear  before  the  Reichstag.  It 
was  understood  that  no  debate  was  to  be  allowed, 
but  that  the  accused  might  declare  in  what  measure 
he  still  maintained  the  positions  advanced  in  his 
books. 

To  Luther  the  summons  was  a  call  to  face  a  great 
ordeal ;  but  the  journey,  though  not  without  much 
personal  danger,  was  made  almost  triumphal  by  the 
hearty  good-will  of  the  common  people  and  of  not 
a  few  of  the  authorities.  On  April  16  he  was  in 
Worms,  and   on  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day  he 


1 1 8  The  Reformation. 

appeared  before  the  Reichstag.  The  emperor's 
representative  pointed  to  a  row  of  books  and  in- 
quired if  they  were  his  and  whether  he  would  re- 
tract their  contents.  Luther  acknowledged  their 
authorship  ;  but  the  question  of  recantation  was  so 
momentous  and  the  occasion  so  awe-inspiring,  that 
he  asked  time  to  consider  his  reply.  A  day  was 
granted  ;  and,  on  April  i8,  Luther  again  faced  the 
Reichstag.  With  firmness  he  now  declared  that, 
though  some  things  had  been  expressed  with  too 
great  heat,  he  could  retract  nothing  unless  its  falsity 
was  demonstrated  to  him  from  the  Scriptures.  His 
questioner  pointed  out  that  his  views  were  those  of 
Wiclif  and  Huss,  whom  the  Council  of  Constance  had 
condemned,  and  pressed  for  a  plain  declaration  as  to 
whether  or  no  he  submitted  to  the  authority  of  that 
revered  assembly.  Luther  replied  in  the  memorable 
words  :  "  Unless  I  am  refuted  by  Scriptural  testi- 
monies or  by  clear  arguments — for  I  believe  neither 
the  pope  nor  the  councils  alone,  since  it  is  clear  that 
they  have  often  erred  and  contradicted  one  another 
— I  am  conquered  by  the  passages  of  Scripture  which 
I  have  cited,  and  my  conscience  is  bound  in  the  Word 
of  God.  I  cannot  and  will  not  recant  anything, 
since  it  is  unsafe  and  dangerous  to  act  against  con- 
science." 

A  moment  of  excitement  followed  in  the  Reichs- 
tag. The  emperor  and  his  Spanish  followers  were 
scarcely  able  to  believe  that  any  human  being  could 
have  the  temerity  to  afifirm  that  councils  could  err  ; 
and  in  the  confusion  it  is  probable  that  Luther  cried 
out  the  words  always  associated  with  this  event : 
"  Here  I  stand.     God  help  me  !     Amen," 


Luther  at   Worms.  1 1 9 

The  scene  was  one  of  the  few  great  dramatic 
moments  of  history.  Accustomed  as  is  the  modern 
Protestant  to  free  expression  of  individual  convic- 
tion, it  is  easy  for  him  to  overlook  the  significance 
and  the  courage  of  Luther's  declaration.  His 
afifirmation  of  belief,  Luther  well  knew,  would  prob- 
ably bring  him  a  death  of  excruciating  agony.  But 
fear  of  the  stake  was  the  least  of  the  barriers  that 
he  overcame  at  Worms,  Could  he  shake  off  the 
subtle  hold  of  more  than  a  millennium  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal tradition  ?  Was  he  sure  enough  of  himself  to 
affirm  that  his  own  conscientious  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  God  was  more  to  be  relied  on  than  the 
declarations  of  the  great  representative  gatherings 
of  Christendom  which  men  generally  believed  to 
have  spoken  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost? 
Could  he  reject  interpretations  of  Scripture  sanc- 
tioned by  the  fathers,  the  doctors  and  the  popes, 
and  search  for  himself  unhindered  the  meaning  of 
that  Word  of  God  in  which  they  and  he  saw  the 
final  authority  ?  And  could  he,  the  peasant's  son, 
with  all  the  awe  of  those  in  rank  and  authority 
characteristic  of  his  race  and  age,  maintain  this 
independence  in  the  face  of  an  august  assembly  of 
the  temporal  and  spiritual  rulers  of  his  nation  ?  To 
half  the  Christian  world  the  attitude  of  Luther 
speaks  to  this  day  but  of  wilful  obstinacy  and 
preference  of  selfish  opinion  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
visible  Church  ;  but  to  those  who  have  entered  into 
the  spirit  of  Protestantism  it  stands  forth  a  heroic 
declaration  of  spiritual  and  mental  independence, 
born  of  fidelity  to  God  in  the  use  of  powers  divinely 


I20  The  Reformation. 

entrusted  to  every  thinking  man,  and  pointing  out 
the  pathway  to  that  freedom  necessary  not  only  for 
the  highest  intellectual  attainment,  but  for  the 
noblest  religious  development  of  mankind. 
■^  As  men's  opinions  are  still  divided  regarding  the 
rightfulness  of  Luther's  position,  so  the  impression 
that  he  made  on  those  present  at  Worms  was 
diverse.  Charles  V.,  with  his  Spanish  and  Italian 
companions,  was  distinctly  repelled.  The  Germans 
felt  more  sympathy.  Some  of  their  nobility  ex- 
pressed open  approval,  and  among  the  common 
people  favor  to  Luther  was  very  general.  Most 
important  of  all,  his  appearance  before  the  Reichs- 
tag augmented  that  determination  on  the  part  of 
Elector  Friedrich  the  Wise  not  to  see  him  hastily 
condemned  which  had  been  his  bulwark  thus  far. 
But  Luther's  positions  were  so  radically  revolution- 
ary of  existing  institutions  and  so  opposed  to  the 
common  view  of  the  infallibility  of  councils  that  no 
other  result  was  to  be  expected  than  a  condemna- 
tory declaration.  Such  an  act,  the  Edict  of  Worms, 
declaring  Luther  an  outlaw  to  be  seized  for  punish- 
ment by  the  emperor,  was  drafted  by  Aleander 
and  signed  by  Charles  V.  on  May  26,  1521  ;  though 
its  signature  was  not  obtained  till  a  number  of  the 
more  influential  nobles  had  left  Worms,  and  its 
enactment  was  not  regularly  voted  by  the  Reichstag. 
Had  Germany  been  as  unified  administratively  as 
contemporary  France,  England  or  Spain,  it  would 
have  gone  hard  with  Luther.  A  few  weeks  at  most 
would  have  seen  his  execution.  But  the  empire 
was  so  loose  a  confederacy  that  imperial  laws  could 


Condemned  and  Protected.  1 2 1 

not  be  enforced  where  they  were  unpopular,  and 
the  emperor's  hands  were  burdened  by  the  great 
military  struggle  which  lay  immediately  before  him. 
The  month  that  witnessed  the  signing  of  the  Edict 
of  Worms  saw  a  treaty  of  political  alliance  between 
pope  and  emperor,  and  the  withdrawal  of  the 
French  ambassador  from  the  imperial  court.  The 
war  for  the  mastery  of  Italy  began.  Insurrections 
in  Spain  compelled  Charles  V.  to  go  to  that  land  ; 
and  not  till  1530  was  he  free  to  return  to  Germany 
and  risk  the  diminution  of  his  military  strength  by 
vigorous  interference  in  its  religious  disputes.  This 
struggle  tied  the  emperor's  hands  and  gave  the 
Reformation  opportunity  to  take  firm  root  in  Ger- 
man soil. 

This  outcome  of  events  was  still  concealed  behind 
the  veil  of  the  future  when  Luther  left  Worms 
under  the  protection  of  the  imperial  safe-conduct 
on  April  26,  1521 — a  month  before  the  edict  against 
him  was  signed.  Aleander  believed  that  he  would 
seek  protection  among  the  Hussites  of  Bohemia. 
But  Friedrich  the  Wise  had  determined,  with 
Luther's  approval,  to  place  him  in  concealment  till 
the  course  of  events  was  more  clear,  and  therefore 
the  elector  had  Luther  seized  by  trusty  agents  as 
he  journeyed  homeward  and  carried  to  the  Wartburg 
near  Eisenach.  By  many  it  was  believed  that  Lu- 
ther had  been  murdered  ;  by  very  few  was  it  known 
where  he  really  was,  and  few  even  of  his  daily  com- 
panions in  the  castle  suspected  that  the  figure  clad 
in  knightly  garb  was  that  of  the  monk  whom  the 
Edict  of  Worms  proclaimed  an  outlawed  heretic. 


122  The  Reformation. 

Luther's  sojourn  in  this  "  Patmos,"  as  he  styled 
it,  marked  the  beginning  of  a  more  constructive 
period  in  his  career  than  that  which  culminated  at 
Worms,  though  its  principles  were  much  the  same. 
Several  vigorous  controversial  pamphlets  showed  to 
the  world  that  he  still  lived  ;  but  his  concealment 
in  the  Wartburg  is  chiefly  memorable  for  his  trans- 
lation of  the  New  Testament,  begun  in  December, 
1 521,  completed  in  three  months,  and  issued  from 
the  press  in  the  following  September.  The  trans- 
lation of  the  Old  Testament  was  gradually  accom- 
plished by  Luther  and  his  associates  after  his  return 
from  the  Wartburg  to  Wittenberg,  and  the  whole 
Bible  in  Luther's  version  was  published  in  1534,  by 
which  time  no  less  than  eighty-five  editions  of  his 
New  Testament  had  been  put  forth.  As  has  been 
pointed  out  in  an  earlier  chapter,  Luther  was  far 
from  being  the  first  to  translate  the  Scriptures  into 
German.  No  less  than  eighteen  times  had  the 
whole  Bible  already  been  printed  in  German  or 
Dutch,  but  the  earlier  translation  was  mechanical 
and  followed  the  Vulgate  rather  than  the  Greek  and 
Hebrew.  It  was  Luther's  distinction  as  a  translator 
to  be  a  master  of  the  German  tongue  such  as  none 
before  him  had  been.  As  he  expressed  it,  he  made 
the  apostles  and  prophets  speak  German  ;  and  in  so 
doing  he  not  only  laid  a  foundation  for  the  up- 
building of  a  constructive  German  Protestantism, 
but  he  exalted  the  Saxon  dialect  as  moulded  by 
him  into  the  standard  of  German  speech.  Judged 
by  modern  canons  of  accuracy,  Luther's  version  was 
very  free.     Perhaps  its  most  peculiar  boldness — a 


Ltd  her  s  New   Testament.  123 

liberty  justly  rebuked  by  his  opponents  at  the  time 
— was  his  endeavor  to  render  what  he  believed  to 
be  the  meaning  of  Paul  more  plain  by  the  insertion 
of  the  word  "alone"  into  Romans  iii.  28;  but 
none  can  deny  his  striking  abilities  as  a  translator, 
or  the  great  impetus  not  merely  toward  a  popular 
acquaintance  with  the  Bible,  but  toward  Evangelical 
conceptions  of  Christianity  which  his  translation 
gave. 

The  protection  of  Luther  by  the  elector  and  the 
continued  tolerance  of  his  views  at  Wittenberg  put 
electoral  Saxony  into  spiritual  rebellion  against 
Rome.  Wittenberg,  led  by  Carlstadt,  Amsdorf, 
Melanchthon,  Johann  Bugenhagen  (1485-1558)  and 
Justus  Jonas  (1493-15 5  5),  was  wholly  committed  to 
the  movement,  and  made  two  remarkable  contribu- 
tions to  its  development  during  Luther's  sojourn  at 
the  Wartburg. 

The  first  of  these  contributions  was  a  theological 
treatise  by  Melanchthon,  the  Loci  Conimiines  Reruin 
Theologicarum,  completed  while  Luther  was  at 
Worms  and  published  in  December,  1521 — a  treat- 
ise which  made  the  author,  then  twenty-four  years 
of  age,  the  theological  leader  of  the  German  Ref- 
ormation. Fresh  and  unscholastic  in  treatment, 
finding  the  final  authority  in  the  Scriptures,  and 
their  interpreter  in  Paul,  it  passed  lightly  over  such 
topics  as  the  being  and  nature  of  God  in  this  earli- 
est of  its  many  editions,  and  dwelt  on  the  questions 
in  debate  with  Rome.  It  held  that  acquaintance 
with  the  facts  of  Christ's  life  and  work  is  not 
saving  faith.      Faith  is  a  confident   assurance  that 


124  The  Reformation. 

Christ  died  for  viy  sins  and  has  made  me  alive. 
Faith  alone  justifies,  because  it  unites  us  to  Christ. 
Where  faith  is  the  Spirit  of  God  dwells,  and  good 
works  are  consequently  done.  There  are  but  two 
sacraments,  Baptism  and  the  Supper  ;  which  are  not 
in  themselves  means  of  justification,  but  are  wit- 
nesses of  the  divine  mercy  toward  us.  Unlike  his 
later  position,  but  in  accordance  with  what  was 
always  Luther's  view,  and  in  opposition  to  the 
semi-Pelagianism  of  the  current  scholastic  theology, 
Melanchthon  in  this  first  edition  presented  extreme 
predestinarian  conceptions.  Constantly  republished, 
and  often  worked  over  and  modified  in  statement  as 
Melanchthon's  views  developed,  it  remained  for 
half  a  century  after  his  death  the  main  text-book  of 
Lutheran  theology,  and  it  must  always  be  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  important  monuments  of  the 
Reformation. 

A  second  step  was  taken  in  the  development  of 
the  movement  at  Wittenberg  during  Luther's  ab- 
sence. External  alterations  in  churchly  life  and 
practice  were  begun,  especially  under  the  leadership 
of  Luther's  elder  colleague,  the  impulsive  and 
injudicious  Carlstadt.  No  changes  in  worship  had 
been  effected  by  Luther;  but  now  on  October  13, 

1521,  private  masses  were  abolished  in  the  Augus- 
tinian  convent  at  Wittenberg,  and   on  January  i, 

1522,  Carlstadt  introduced  the  reformed  communion 
into  the  town  church.  Twenty-four  days  later  the 
town  council  approved  the  change.  The  alterations 
thus  begun,  though  speedily  much  developed  and 
modified,  were    formative,    for  they  abolished  the 


J^ermeni  at   Wittenberg.  125 

sacrificial  features  of  the  mass,  they  gave  to  preach- 
ing a  central  position  in  the  service,  and  they 
offered  the  communion  both  in  bread  and  wine  to 
all.  But  much  more  radical  changes  were  also  at- 
tempted. The  agitation  of  the  previous  months 
had  stirred  uneasy  Germany  deeply.  At  Zwickau 
the  pastor,  Thomas  Miinzer  (c.  1490-1525),  a  man 
of  mystic  temperament  and  socialistic  impulses,  had 
come  into  association  with  radicals  led  by  Nikolaus 
Storch,  a  weaver,  and  Marx  Thoma  Stubner,  a 
former  Wittenberg  student,  and  stimulated  prob- 
ably by  Hussite  influences  among  the  working 
people  of  the  town.  These  men  believed  the  end  1 
of  the  world  was  near,  that  infant  baptism  was  to 
be  abandoned  since  children  could  not  exercise 
faith,  that  God  revealed  himself  in  present  visions 
and  prophetic  inspirations  which  had  a  higher 
authority  than  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  and  that  the 
old  religious  and  social  order  must  at  once  be  done 
away.  They  represented  the  more  radical  mani- 
festations which  every  great  popular  ferment  is  sure 
to  arouse.  Many  things  that  they  sought  were  real 
reforms,  more  were  fanatic,  and  all  were  vastly 
more  turmoiling  than  anything  that  Luther  had 
proposed.  To  them  Luther  was  but  a  half-hearted 
reformer. 

The  coming  of  Storch  and  Stubner  to  Wittenberg 
just  after  Christmas,  1521,  and  the  arrival  of  Miinzer 
a  little  later,  but  increased  the  existing  ferment. 
Carlstadt  welcomed  them,  Melanchthon  hardly  knew 
what  to  think,  while  Amsdorf  was  powerless.  Many 
monks  had  already  left  the  Wittenberg  monastery. 


126  The  Reformation. 

Carlstadt  now  married,  and  declared  that,  far  from 
encouraging  celibacy,  the  Scriptures  required  the 
clergy  to  marry.  In  company  with  the  Zwickau 
"prophets,"  Carlstadt  began  to  condemn  learning 
and  to  advise  the  university  students  to  take  up 
manual  labor,  on  the  ground  that  the  wisdom  of 
God  was  hid  from  the  learned  and  revealed  to  the 
ignorant.  Pictures  and  images  were  destroyed,  in- 
fant baptism  declared  as  worthless  as  the  baptism 
of  a  cat,  and  monasticism  a  peril  to  the  soul.  Mean- 
while, in  the  Castle  Church,  to  which  Luther  had 
affixed  his  theses,  the  old  Roman  order  of  worship 
continued.  Wittenberg  was  a  storm  centre.  The 
elector  and  the  magistrates  were  powerless. 

Luther,  from  his  retreat  at  the  Wartburg,  had  not 
been  unobservant  of  the  turmoil  ;  and  now,  in  March, 
1522,  in  spite  of  the  personal  peril  which  such  a  step 
involved,  he  determined  to  abandon  all  concealment 
and  return  to  Wittenberg.  No  clearer  demonstra- 
tion of  his  power  as  a  leader  of  men  could  have  been 
given  than  what  followed.  By  eight  days  of  preach- 
ing he  altered  the  whole  situation.  The  Gospel, 
he  declared,  taught  sin,  forgiveness  and  love  to 
one's  neighbor.  The  principle  last  named  had  been 
violated  by  the  rash  and  forcible  changes  which 
Wittenberg  had  witnessed,  though  some  of  the  alter- 
ations, especially  in  worship,  Luther  maintained. 
The  Zwickau  ''prophets"  left  town,  Carlstadt  lost 
his  influence,  though  he  was  later  to  be  a  force  in 
Thuringia,  and  ultimately  to  find  a  resting-place  in 
Zwinglian  Switzerland.  Luther  was  unquestion- 
ably master  of  the  Saxon  movement.     But  the  first 


Luther  the  Master.  127 

division  in  the  anti-Roman  forces  had  taken  place — 
a  division  that  was  doubtless  unavoidable,  but  was 
none  the  less  ominous.  There  were  now  a  radical 
and  a  conservative  wing  among  the  opponents  of 
Rome,  and  Luther  had  chosen  the  conservative  side. 

By  the  time  of  Luther's  return  to  Wittenberg, 
Evangelical  views  were  becoming  influential  in  many 
parts  of  Germany  beside  electoral  Saxony.  Many  of 
his  brother  Augustinians  and  not  a  few  from  other 
orders  warmly  preached  his  doctrines.  Within  two 
years  of  that  return,  influential  imperial  cities  such  as 
Strassburg,  Ulm,  Nuremberg,  Magdeburg,  Bremen 
and  Hamburg  were  powerfully  drawn  to  the  Evan- 
gelical faith  by  the  preaching  of  sympathizers  with 
the  Wittenberg  movement  or  disciples  of  Luther ; 
and,  more  important  even  than  these  conquests,  the 
rulers  of  Hesse,  Prussia,  and,  in  a  less  open  degree, 
the  heads  of  several  other  north  German  states,  had 
shown  a  favor  toward  Luther's  views  that  gave 
promise  that  northern  Germany  as  a  whole  would 
speedily  be  dominated  by  the  new  movement — a 
promise  that  was  destined  to  substantial  realization. 

This  rapid  crystallization  of  the  Evangelical  sym- 
pathizers into  a  dominant  party  and  the  freedom 
with  which  Luther  labored  at  Wittenberg,  though 
under  the  official  condemnation  of  the  empire,  were 
largely  made  possible  by  the  course  of  European 
politics.  The  emperor  and  the  pope  alike  were 
unable  effectively  to  interfere  in  German  affairs. 
Charles  V.,  though  anxious  to  execute  the  Edict  of 
Worms,  was  taxed  to  his  utmost  strength  by  the 
war  with  France  and  the  internal  politics  of  Spain. 


128  The  Reformation. 

Nor  was  the  might  of  the  papacy  less  lamed  for  the 
time  being.  Leo  X.  had  died  in  December,  1521, 
and  had  been  followed  by  that  earnest-minded  re- 
former of  the  Spanish  type,  Charles's  tutor  and 
statesman,  Adrian  of  Utrecht,  as  Adrian  VI.  (1522- 
23).  Adrian,  though  strongly  opposed  to  Luther, 
looked  upon  the  Lutheran  rebellion  as  a  divine 
chastisement  for  the  corruptions  of  the  Church,  and 
felt  the  necessity  of  a  reform  which  should  begin 
first  of  all  with  the  Roman  curia.  But  nothing 
could  have  been  less  to  the  mind  of  the  cardinals  by 
whom  he  was  surrounded,  and  his  brief  pontificate 
was  paralyzed,  as  far  as  all  effective  interference  in 
Germany  was  concerned,  by  fruitless  struggles  with 
the  ofificials  of  his  court.  A  less  reformatory  pope 
would  have  aided  the  papal  cause  far  more  at  this 
juncture.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  that  successive  Reichstags  at  Nurem- 
berg in  1 522-23  and  1 524  made  no  effective  efforts  to 
enforce  the  Edict  of  Worms.  But  they  went  much 
farther;  that  of  1522-23  demanding  a  general  coun- 
cil, pending  the  assembling  of  which  the  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  might  continue,  and  that  of  1524 
caUinga  German  national  council  to  meet  at  Speier — 
a  council  which  the  emperor  had  power  enough  to 
prevent. 

With  the  accession  of  Giulio  de'  Medici  as  Clem- 
ent Vn.  (pope  1523-34)  to  the  papacy,  a  more 
systematic  opposition  to  the  further  spread  of 
Lutheranism  began.  The  skilful  Cardinal  Lorenzo 
Campegi  (1474-1539),  Clement's  legate  in  Germany, 
anxious  to  consolidate  the  Roman  forces,  secured  a 


LutheranisJii   Opposed.  1 29 

meeting  of  the  emperor's  brother,  Ferdinand,  the 
dukes  of  Bavaria  and  many  bishops  from  southern 
Germany  at  Regensburg  in  June  and  July,  1524,  at 
which  a  league  to  oppose  Lutheranism  was  organ- 
ized, and  a  churchly  reformation  far  less  thorough 
than  that  of  Spain,  but  somewhat  after  the  Spanish 
model,  was  begun.  Churchly  taxes  were  diminished, 
churchly  holidays  somewhat  reduced  in  number, 
and  the  dukes  of  Bavaria  were  given  certain  rights 
of  control  over  the  clergy  of  their  territories.  The 
movement  thus  begun  was  of  great  political  and  re- 
ligious importance.  It  was  the  practical  break-up 
of  all  unity  in  the  internal  politics  of  the  empire — • 
north  and  south  Germany  go  different  ways.  It 
secured  southern  Germany  for  the  Roman  Church, 
and  it  marked  the  beginning,  however  feebly,  of 
that  attempt  to  meet  the  Lutheran  revolt  by  reforms 
of  the  most  glaring  ecclesiastical  abuses  to  which 
the  name  counter-Reformation  is  usually  given  ; 
though,  in  using  that  convenient  name,  it  should 
always  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  counter-Reforma- 
tion as  it  ultimately  developed  stood  for  much  more 
than  mere  opposition  to  Evangelicalism,  and  that 
the  springs  of  churchly  purification  lay  back  in  such 
reformatory  desires  as  had  already  found  expression 
in  Spain,  however  they  may  have  been  quickened 
by  the  Lutheran  revolt. 

Even  more  important  than  this  Regensburg  con- 
vention in  putting  a  limit  to  the  spread  of  Luther- 
anism and  in  dividing  Germany  into  two  camps  was 
the  great  peasant  uprising  in  western  and  southern 
Germany  in  1524  and  1525.     The  oppression  and  the 


130  The  Reformation. 

industrial  unrest  of  the  peasants  have  ah'eady  been 
pointed  out  ;  and  it  has  been  noted  that  to  many 
radical  men  whom  the  Saxon  religious  revolt  awoke 
or  stimulated,  like  Carlstadt,  Miinzer,  or  Stiibner, 
Luther  seemed  but  a  half-way  reformer.  The  inflam- 
mable state  of  the  lower  orders,  especially  in  that  part 
of  Germany  where  near-by  Swiss  freedom  served  as 
a  reminder  that  better  conditions  were  possible, 
was  undoubtedly  wrought  upon  by  the  Lutheran 
movement.  As  that  revolutionary  impulse  reached 
the  peasantry  through  the  radical  preachers,  it  be- 
came a  call  to  a  recreation  not  merely  of  the  Church, 
but  of  society.  That  this  was  so  was  no  fault  of 
Luther.  Conservative  by  nature,  he  deprecated  all 
that  seemed  opposition  to  constituted  authorities  as 
fully  as  he  opposed  the  religious  radicalism  of  a 
Miinzer  or  a  Carlstadt.  Luther  would  have  the 
Reformation  an  orderly  withdrawal  from  Roman 
abuses,  as  he  deemed  them.  To  him  it  was  purely 
a  religious  reform.  The  social  order  he  would  not 
touch.  In  the  vicinity  of  Wittenberg,  where  his 
influence  was  potent,  he  held  the  movement  to  his 
ideal  ;  but  it  was  far  beyond  the  power  of  any  one 
man,  however  gifted,  to  control  it  throughout  Ger- 
many. By  the  close  of  1524,  Swabia  was  in  com- 
motion, the  peasants  having  generally  risen,  and 
through  the  early  months  of  1525  the  insurrection 
spread  throughout  southwestern  Germany  and  in- 
vaded Thuringia.  Judged  from  a  modern  stand- 
point, the  wishes  of  the  great  majority  of  the  peas- 
ants seem  very  reasonable.  They  asserted  the  right 
to  choose   their  own  pastors,  they  demanded  the 


The  Peasant  Revolt.  131 

abolition  of  forced  labor,  they  sought  freedom  to 
hunt,  fish  and  take  fuel  from  the  forests,  they  urged 
the  modification  or  abolition  of  the  more  oppressive 
feudal  taxes,  and  their  Evangelical  impulse  is  mani- 
fest in  their  willingness  that  all  their  demands  should 
be  tried  by  the  Word  of  God.  To  grant  these  de- 
sires would  have  been,  however,  to  have  altered  the 
existing  social  constitution  of  Germany,  and  the 
nobles  almost  every  where  opposed.  And  a  consider- 
able minority  of  the  peasants,  led  by  such  visionary 
fanatics  as  Miinzer,  were  ready  to  go  vastly  farther, 
and  attempt  the  forcible  destruction  of  castles  and 
monasteries  and  the  introduction  of  a  reign  of  com- 
pulsory equality.  Luther's  position,  in  the  face  of 
this  tremendous  rebellion,  was  most  trying.  Himself 
a  peasant's  son,  his  strong  conviction  that  the  con- 
stituted civil  authorities  must  be  supported,  or  the 
causes  of  order  and  religion  alike  would  perish,  made 
him  an  opponent  of  those  with  whom  he  might  nat- 
urally have  sympathized.  As  the  contest  went  on  he 
passed  from  an  advocate  of  arbitration  as  a  settle- 
ment of  the  questions  in  dispute  to  a  bitter  de- 
nouncer of  the  whole  insurrection.  He  appealed  to 
the  nobles  to  root  it  out  by  the  sword.  Such  an 
appeal  was  not  needed  to  incite  the  German  no- 
bility. From  the  first  the  nobles,  especially  the 
lesser  nobles  of  the  Rhine  valley,  had  shown  them- 
selves hostile  to  the  peasants,  and  in  April,  May  and 
June,  1525,  the  peasant  insurrection  was  put  down 
with  frightful  cruelty.  Probably  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  men  lost  their  lives,  and  the  peasantry 
emerged  from  the  ill-managed  struggle  in  a  worse 


132  The  Reformation. 

condition  than  ever.  Luther  really  had  little  direct 
influence  either  on  the  beginning  or  the  end  of  the 
struggle  ;  but  the  peasant  war  profoundly  affected 
the  Evangelical  Reformation.  On  the  one  hand, 
Luther  lost  much  of  his  hold  on  the  common  peo- 
ple, especially  of  the  regions  where  the  rising  had 
taken  place,  by  reason  of  his  hostility  ^  the  peas- 
antry ;  and  on  the  other,  many  of  the  upper  and 
middle  classes  looked  upon  the  peasant  rising  as  the 
natural  fruitage  of  Lutheranism — a  fruitage  which 
Luther's  savage  antagonism  to  the  movement  did 
not  suffice  to  prevent  their  ascribing  to  his  preach- 
ing. Thus  the  Lutheran  cause  received  a  check  in 
southern  Germany,  and  the  division  of  the  land  on 
the  problems  which  the  Saxon  revolt  had  raised  was 
increased.  The  work  of  Campegi,  begun  at  Re- 
gensburg  in  1524,  was  given  a  powerful  impulse. 

Nor  was  the  peasant  war  the  only  trial  through 
which  Luther  had  to  pass  during  the  years  1524 
and  1525.  Erasmus,  never  cordially  Luther's  sup- 
porter, attacked  Luther's  Augustinian  conceptions 
of  the  inability  of  the  human  will  in  the  autumn  of 
1524;  and  in  December,  1525,  Luther  replied  to  his 
famous  critic  with  an  extreme  assertion  of  the  bond- 
age of  mankind,  of  the  absoluteness  of  the  divine 
predestination,  and  of  the  twofold  aspect  of  the  will 
of  God,  secret  and  revealed,  offering  salvation  to 
all,  but  working  effectively  to  the  salvation  of  a 
part  only  of  the  human  race.  This  controversy 
was  a  symptom  rather  than  the  cause  of  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  humanists  from  the  Lutheran  move- 
ment.    Many,  like  Wilibald  Pirkheimer  of  Nurem- 


Luther  s  Marriage.  133 

berg  or  Crotus  Rubianus  of  Erfurt,  who  had  at  first 
welcomed  Luther,  withdrew  from  all  affiliation  with 
him  and  returned  to  the  ancient  Church.  They  had 
little  sympathy  with  the  primarily  religious  character 
which  Luther  was  imparting  to  the  revolt  from 
Rome,  and  they  feared  the  consequences  of  his 
breach  with  time-honored  ecclesiastical  institutions, 
however  little  they  might  respect  those  institutions 
themselves.  It  is  easy  to  condemn  such  men  ;  but 
such  condemnation  is  not  wholly  just.  Without  the 
religious  conviction  of  a  Luther  on  the  one  side  or 
of  an  Eck  on  the  other,  they  saw  the  faults  in  the 
Roman  Church  and  the  crudities  in  the  Evangelical 
movement.  They  sympathized  fully  with  neither  ; 
but,  on  the  whole,  they  swung  back  to  that  which 
had  the  sanction  of  time  as  involving  no  uncertain- 
ties and  as  well  known  in  all  its  faults  and  merits. 

It  is  probable  that  another  event  which  made 
these  years  of  the  peasant  war  a  time  of  alienation 
from  the  Lutheran  cause  was  Luther's  marriage. 
Doubtless  that  protest  against  the  Roman  doctrine 
of  clerical  celibacy  was  ultimately  an  advantage  to 
the  Evangelical  cause  ;  and  Luther's  most  genial 
side  appears  in  his  home  life.  But  his  sudden 
marriage  to  a  former  nun,  Katharina  von  Bora,  on 
June  13,  1525,  was  a  great  shock  to  many  who  had 
not  so  torn  themselves  free  from  the  teachings  of 
the  Roman  Church  as  had  he.  To  ascribe  to  a 
desire  to  marry  any  share  in  inducing  Luther's 
revolt  from  Rome  is,  however,  an  absurdity.  His 
marriage  was  almost  unpremeditated,  and  his  breach 
with  the  papacy  had  been  effected  years  before  any 


134  ^-^^  Reformation. 

thought  of  possible  marriage  had  been  entertained. 
Yet  this  union  of  a  monk  and  a  nun  seemed  to 
many  to  give  point  to  Erasmus's  bitter  jest,  that 
the  Reformation,  which  had  at  first  appeared  a 
tragedy,  was  in  reahty  a  comedy,  the  end  of  which 
was  a  wedding. 

But  while  the  middle  of  the  third  decade  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  thus  a  time  of  trial  for  the 
cause  of  the  Saxon  reformers,  they  were  greatly 
aided  by  the  course  of  European  politics,  and  espe- 
cially by  the  action  of  Pope  Clement  VII.,  whose 
policy  was  controlled  more  by  his  interests  as  an 
Italian  sovereign  than  as  head  of  the  Roman 
Church.  Several  years  of  undecisive  warfare  be- 
tween Charles  of  Germany  and  Spain  and  Francis 
of  France,  in  which  the  prize  was  the  control  of 
Italy,  ended  suddenly  on  February  24,  1525,  in  a 
signal  French  defeat  near  Pavia,  in  which  Francis 
himself  was  captured  and  his  army  swept  away. 
Till  this  decisive  victory  the  emperor's  hands  had 
been  tied,  so  that  effective  interference  in  the  re- 
ligious concerns  of  Germany  was  impossible.  That 
victory  greatly  aided  in  the  repression  of  the 
peasant  rising  in  May  and  June,  1525  ;  and  it  seemed 
to  leave  the  emperor  free  to  put  an  end  to  Lutheran- 
ism  and  enforce  the  Edict  of  Worms  against  Luther 
himself,  as  he  had  long  desired.  It  seemed  also  to 
make  Spain  dominant  on  the  Italian  peninsula. 
All  these  results  appeared  to  be  securely  confirmed 
by  the  humiliating  treaty  which  the  captive  French 
king  accepted  under  oath  at  Madrid  in  January, 
1526;  and  Charles  was  not  slow  in  intimating  his 


Charles  and  Francis.  135 

desire  to  the  princes  of  Germany  that  more  active 
measures  be  taken  to  stifle  the  Lutheran  movement. 
So  threatening  appeared  the  situation  in  view  of  the 
victory  at  Pavia  and  the  reaction  which  followed 
the  repression  of  the  peasants,  that  Philip  of  Hesse, 
and  Johann,  Avho  had  succeeded  Friedrich  the  Wise 
as  elector  of  Saxony  in  May,  1525,  formed  the  first 
Evangelical  defensive  union  in  November  of  the 
year  just  named — a  league  which  was  further  per- 
fected in  February,  1526,  and  was  joined  in  June 
following  by  the  dukes  of  Brunswick  and  Mecklen- 
burg, by  the  rulers  of  Anhalt  and  Mansfeld  and  the 
city  of  Magdeburg.  This  association  is  generally 
styled  the  League  of  Torgau, 

In  spite  of  this  defensive  union,  however,  it  would 
have  gone  hard  with  the  Evangelical  cause  had 
Charles  now  been  able  to  put  forth  his  strength  as 
he  anticipated.  But  now  Clement  VIL,  dreading 
the  supremacy  of  the  Spaniards  in  Italy,  and 
anxious  to  renew  the  old  attempt  to  secure  the 
independence  of  the  Italian  princes  by  balancing 
the  rival  powers  of  France  and  Spain,  absolved 
Francis  from  his  oath;  and  in  May,  1526,  entered 
into  a  "holy  league"  at  Cognac  with  France, 
Milan,  Venice  and  Florence,  supported  by  the  sym- 
pathy of  England,  to  repress  the  threatening  power 
of  Charles  V.  The  victory  of  Pavia  was  rendered 
barren  ;  war  was  on  again,  and  the  pope  was  its 
instigator.  An  imperial  army  com_posed  of  Span- 
iards and  Italians,  and  a  great  number  of  German 
troops  of  Lutheran  sympathies,  stormed  Rome  on 
May  6,    1527.     The  scene  of  plunder,  torture  and 


136  The  Reformation. 

destruction  that  followed  rendered  the  sack  of  the 
papal  capital  memorable  even  among  the  brutal 
sieges  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  pope  was 
mocked,  the  churches  and  monasteries  plundered, 
the  inhabitants  maltreated  in  every  conceivable 
manner.  Rome  never  recovered.  Its  agony  marked 
the  end  of  the  gay,  easy-going,  artistic,  pleasure- 
loving  Rome  of  the  Renascence.  The  way  was 
made  ready  for  the  sombre,  ecclesiastical  Rome  of 
the  counter-Reformation. 

The  effect  of  the  altered  political  situation  was 
immediately  felt  in  Germany.  In  spite  of  the  ex- 
press instructions  of  the  emperor  and  the  presence 
of  a  Catholic  majority,  the  Reichstag  that  met  at 
Speier  in  June,  1526,  adopted  an  indefinitely  worded 
resolution  to  the  effect  that,  pending  the  meeting  of 
an  ecclesiastical  council,  each  of  the  constituent 
elements  of  the  empire  should  so  act  as  it  might 
trust  to  answer  before  God  and  the  emperor.  This 
important  resolution  was  intended  as  a  mere  modus 
vivendi ;  but  the  council  did  not  meet  till  1542,  the 
emperor's  hands  were  tied  for  several  years  after 
1526,  and  the  Evangelical  party  soon  came  to 
interpret  this  action  of  the  Reichstag  at  Speier  as 
a  legal  authorization  that  each  German  territory 
should  order  its  religious  affairs  as  its  local  rulers 
saw  fit. 

The  thought  that  the  civil  rulers  must  reform  the 
Church  was  not  peculiar  to  the  Evangelical  Refor- 
mation. In  some  degree  it  was  common  property 
throughout  Christendom  at  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century.     Ever  since  the  great  papal  schism 


State  Ecclesiastical  Control  139 

had    threatened    to    divide    Europe    into     anions  of 
churches,  the  purification  of   the  Church  tts  pastor 
rulers  had  seemed  to  many  the  most  hopeful  n.  synod, 
of  reform.   That  method  had  been  employed  in  "^^  also 
with  marked  success.      But  the  situation  in  Germa?uld 
favored  a  much  more  radical  application  of  the  plan^e 
of  reform  by  magisterial  interference  than  any  Cath- 
olic country  had  witnessed.     The  hostile  attitude  of 
the  bishops  toward  the  new  movement  showed  that 
the  new  church  constitution,  in  Germany  at  least, 
could  not  be  introduced  by  the  existing  ecclesiasti- 
cal authorities.     Who  was  there,  then,  who  could 
reorganize  the  Church  in  a  given  territory  but  the 
civil  rulers  of  that  territory  ;  and  did  not  the  doc- 
trine of  the  universal  priesthood  of  believers  point 
to  them  as  those  to  effect  the  change,  since  they 
were,  of  all  the  Church,  those  most  conspicuously 
possessed  of  the  power  to  do  so  by  reason  of  their 
worldly  authority,  while  their  spiritual  right  to  do 
so  was  as  great  as  that  of  any  Christian  anywhere  ? 
Yet  it  was  not  at  all  Luther's  original  thought  that 
the  civil  authorities  should  be  the  permanent  ad- 
ministrators of  ecclesiastical  affairs.      Their   inter- 
vention was  due  to  the  exigency  of  the  situation. 
The  Church  itself,  he  held,  is  the  community   of 
believers.     It  has  its  local  existence  in  the  locai 
community.     As  such,  the  community  should  ap- 
point ministers  who  should  exercise  the  universal 
priestly  office  in  its  name.     Their  appointment  by 
the  community  was,  strictly  speaking,  their  all-suf- 
ficient authorization  without  ceremonial  ordination. 
The  community  should  excommunicate.     The  sac- 


138  The  Reformation. 

rament.'  belonged  to  the  community.  But  Luther 
had  no  genius  for  organization.  He  was  frightened 
by  th^  excesses  which  seemed  to  follow  where  the 
com^non  people  were  not  wisely  led,  and  by  1526  he 
h?d'  come  to  feel  that  the  only  safe  method  of 
^4fecting  reform  was  to  rest  it,  for  the  time  at  least, 
in  the  strong  hands  of  the  civil  rulers. 

A  great  many  local  alterations  in  the  order  of 
worship  had  taken  place  since  1522,  and  here  and 
there  some  modification  of  the  ecclesiastical  consti- 
tution had  been  attempted  ;  but  now,  after  the 
Reichstag  of  Speier  in  1526,  the  work  of  organizing 
churches  on  a  territorial  scale  was  taken  in  hand  by 
the  princes  and  cities  of  Evangelical  sympathies. 
Luther  and  the  reformers  generally  held  fast  to  the 
principle  that  in  any  sovereign  territory  only  one 
form  of  worship  should  be  tolerated;  hence  this 
work  at  once  divided  non-Roman  Germany  into  a 
group  of  territorial  churches,  coterminous  with  its 
political  subdivisions. 

By  October,  1526,  Philip  of  Hesse  had  summoned 
a  convention  representative  of  his  territory  at  Hom- 
burg,  in  which  the  French  reformer,  a  former  Fran- 
ciscan monk  of  Avignon,  and  later  student  at  Wit- 
tenberg, Francois  Lambert  (1486-1530),  was  the 
leading  spirit.  As  a  consequence  of  this  conven- 
tion, a  commission  led  by  Lambert  prepared  an 
ecclesiastical  constitution  for  Hesse  that  contained 
many  features  of  later  Congregationalism  and  Pres- 
byterianism.  Congregations  of  professed  Christian 
believers  were  to  be  gathered  from  out  the  inhab- 
itants of  each  parish,  who  should  choose  their  own 


Territorial  Churches.  139 

pastors  and  deacons.  These  local  communions  of 
believers  should  be  represented  each  by  its  pastor 
and  an  elected  delegate  in  an  annual  Hessian  synod, 
of  which  the  landgrave  and  the  nobles  should  also 
be  members.  By  this  synod  visitors  who  should 
see  to  the  good  order  of  the  churches  should  be 
chosen  ;  and  a  standing  committee  should  be  elected 
which  should  consider  cases  of  ecclesiastical  impor- 
tance and  difficulty. 

This  constitution,  could  it  have  been  carried  into 
operation,  would  have  made  the  story  of  German 
Protestantism  far  other  than  it  was  actually  to  be. 
It  would  have  given  the  people  a  real  share  in 
church  government.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the 
larger  features  of  Lambert's  plan  inconsistent  with 
Luther's  earlier  views  of  church  constitution — as 
illustrated,  for  instance,  in  his  letter  to  the  govern- 
ment of  Prague  in  1523.  But,  by  1526,  the  peasant 
war  and  the  more  radical  revolutionists  had  fright- 
ened Luther  and  the  more  conservative  reformers. 
He  advised  against  the  adoption  of  Lambert's  plan 
as  impracticable,  and  the  scheme  was  never  put  in 
practice.  Instead,  the  ecclesiastical  reformation  of 
electoral  Saxony  became  the  general  model  for  the 
organization  of  the  territorial  churches  of  northern 
Germany. 

Could  Luther  have  had  it  so,  he  would  have  been 
glad  to  see  the  alteration  of  the  Saxon  ecclesiastical 
constitution  effected  by  the  bishops.  Melanchthon 
was  even  more  disposed  to  favor  episcopal  control 
where  it  might  be  retained.  In  spiritual  powers, 
Luther,  Melanchthon,  and  the  continental  reformers 


140  The  Reformation. 

universally,  held  that  all  ministers  are  equal  ;  but 
they  were  not  averse  to  recognize  administrative 
distinctions  of  human  appointment,  and  Melanch- 
thon  was  even  willing  to  admit  such  a  limited  supe- 
riority as  belonging  to  the  papacy.  But  no  German 
bishops  at  this  time,  save  two  in  far-off  Prussia 
proper,  favored  the  new  doctrines.  Luther  was 
afraid  to  trust  a  popular  constitution,  like  that  pro- 
posed by  Lambert.  Saxony  was  in  great  religious 
confusion,  the  church  lands  were  being  seized  by 
grasping  nobles,  congregations  and  schools  were 
neglected.  Something  must  be  done  ;  and  to  Lu- 
ther it  seemed  that  it  must  be  done  by  the  civil 
authorities  as  bishops  by  force  of  necessity. 

Some  steps  of  importance  toward  an  ecclesiastical 
reorganization  had  been  taken  in  Saxony  before  the 
Reichstag  of  Speier.  It  has  already  been  pointed 
out  that  Luther  disapproved  the  rash  introduction 
of  changes  in  worship  by  Carlstadt  in  1521  and 
1522,  though  holding  many  of  the  alterations  to  be 
desirable  in  themselves.  But  by  1523  he  was 
heartily  supporting  very  considerable  modifications 
of  the  older  service,  including  the  omission  of  the 
**  canon,"  or  sacrificial  portion,  of  the  mass,  and 
had  prepared  and  issued  a  form  for  baptism  in  the 
German  tongue.  In  1524,  at  Wittenberg  and 
Erfurt,  small  collections  of  hymns,  many  of  them 
of  Luther'jj  own  composition  or  translation,  were 
issued,  and  the  share  of  the  congregation,  as  a  whole, 
in  the  public  worship  of  song,  which  is  one  of  the 
glories  of  Lutheranism,  may  be  said  to  have  been 
secured.     In   January,     1526,     Luther's    formative 


Liturgical  Changes.  141 

Deutsche  Messc,  or  order  of  public  worship  in  Ger- 
man, was  published.  This  liturgical  directory, 
which  was  widely  determinative  of  the  form  of 
churchly  services  throughout  northern  Germany, 
retained  much  of  the  old  order  and  ceremony  of  the 
mass,  rejecting  its  sacrificial  elements,  and  translat- 
ing it  into  the  common  tongue,  but  gave  large 
place  to  the  sermon  as  an  exposition  of  the  Word 
of  God,  and  to  popular  participation  in  song. 
Luther  was  too  much  a  believer  in  Christian  lib- 
erty to  insist  on  one  order  of  worship  everywhere, 
and  the  Lutheran  churches  followed  his  example 
with  much  freedom  and  local  variations  in  the 
different  states  ;  but  the  great  principles  of  worship 
in  the  vernacular,  of  preaching,  and  of  common 
song  he  made  characteristic  of  them  all.  Luther's 
disposition,  as  has  been  often  pointed  out,  was 
fundamentally  conservative,  and  his  conservatism 
is  nowhere  more  apparent  than  in  his  treatment  of 
public  worship.  He  altered  as  little  as  possible. 
As  for  vestments,  candles,  crucifixes  and  pictures, 
he  regarded  them  as  things  indifferent,  to  be  used 
if  not  superstitiously  abused.  In  wide  distinction 
from  the  reformers  of  Switzerland,  he  held  all 
allowable  in  the  worship  of  God  that  express  Bibli- 
cal precept  did  not  seem  to  forbid  ;  and  in  this  the 
churches  of  northern  Germany  followed  him. 

But  while  Luther  and  his  associates  were  making 
these  modifications,  the  need  of  some  vigorous  con- 
trol over  the  chaotic  religious  state  of  Saxony  was 
more  and  more  evident.  Contemporaneously  with 
the  publication  of  his  Deutsche  Messe,  Luther  per- 


142  The  Refor7naiion. 

suaded  the  new  elector  of  Saxony,  Johann  (1525- 
32),  to  order  an  experimental  visitation,  or  gov- 
ernmental examination  and  regulation,  of  a  small 
portion  of  Saxony.  But  it  was  not  till  after  the 
Reichstag  of  Speier  had  passed  its  significant  vote 
that  anything  like  a  general  regulation  of  Saxon 
ecclesiastical  interests  was  attempted.  Determined 
on  by  the  elector  in  1527,  Melanchthon  prepared 
elaborate  instructions  for  the  visitatorial  commis- 
sions who  were  to  examine  and  regulate  the  affairs 
of  the  various  districts  into  which  Saxony  was 
divided.  These  instructions  provided  for  an  in- 
vestigation into  the  character  and  abilities  of  the 
ministers  in  the  several  parishes,  they  set  forth  a 
system  of  doctrine  which  was  to  be  taught  through- 
out the  land,  they  regulated  public  worship,  they  pro- 
vided for  the  maintenance  and  order  of  the  curricula 
of  schools.  Their  most  peculiar  constitutional 
feature  was  probably  the  establishment,  as  inter- 
mediate between  the  prince  and  the  local  ministry, 
of  Superattendcntcs  (Superintendents),  each  in  charge 
of  a  district  and  responsible  for  the  teaching  and 
character  of  its  pastors.  The  of^ce  was  evidently 
that  of  the  former  bishop  viewed  purely  in  its 
administrative  functions.  Former  rights  of  patron- 
age and  appointment  to  church-livings  were  not 
disturbed.  The  people  gained  no  greater  share  in 
church  government  than  they  had  possessed  before. 
Under  these  instructions,  Saxony  was  "  visited  "  in 
1528  and  1529  by  commissions  armed  with  authority 
of  the  elector,  and  its  Evangelical  churchly  consti- 
tution established.     But  the  most  notable  spiritual 


The  Saxon  Visitation,  143 

monuments  of  this  effort  to  reconstruct  the  shattered 
Church  on  EvangeHcal  lines  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
two  noble  Catechisms  which  Luther  prepared  in 
1529.  The  smaller  Catechism  in  particular,  ex- 
pounding to  the  simplest  comprehension  the  Com- 
mandments, the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
Baptism  and  the  Supper,  is  one  of  the  masterpieces 
of  Christian  instruction,  and  remains  to  this  day  not 
merely  one  of  the  most  popular  of  catechisms,  but 
one  of  the  confessional  bases  of  the  Lutheran 
churches. 

The  Saxon  visitation  became,  with  local  modifica- 
tions, the  model  for  all  the  Evangelical  states  of 
northern  Germany  ;  and  its  system  of  control  by 
the  territorial  sovereign  became  the  normal  type  of 
Lutheran  church  organization.  The  Saxon  consti- 
tution was  modified  in  detail  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  notably  by  the  addition,  in  1538  and  1539,  ^o 
the  superintendents  of  "consistories"  of  jurists 
and  theologians  for  the  adjudication  of  more  difficult 
ecclesiastical  problems ;  but  its  essential  features 
were  developed  in  the  years  immediately  following 
the  Reichstag  at  Speier  in  1526. 

Naturally,  such  visible  modifications  of  the  es- 
tablished constitution  of  important  German  terri- 
tories could  not  take  place  without  intensifying 
feeling  between  the  two  dominant  religious  parties 
in  Germany  ;  but  the  political  situation  was  much 
embittered  by  an  event  of  the  year  1528.  Philip  of 
Hesse,  deceived  by  Otto  von  Pack,  a  prominent 
official  of  the  court  of  still  Catholic  ducal  Saxony, 
was  induced  to  believe  that  a  leag-ue  of  Roman  ad- 


144  ^^^  Reformation. 


herents  had  been  formed  for  the  forcible  suppression 
of  Lutheranism  and  the  partition  of  the  Lutheran 
lands.  The  document  which  Pack  sold  to  the  land- 
grave as  a  copy  of  the  alleged  compact  of  the  foes 
of  the  new  doctrines  was  an  arrant,  and  it  would 
seem  almost  a  transparent,  forgery  ;  but  Philip  and 
the  Saxon  elector,  no  less  than  Luther,  thought  it 
genuine,  and  Philip  determined  to  anticipate  the  at- 
tack, though  Luther  urged  that  an  appeal  to  arms 
was  justifiable  only  as  a  means  of  defence.  The 
falsity  of  the  alleged  conspiracy  was  made  manifest 
before  the  German  states  had  become  fully  involved 
in  civil  war,  but  the  escape  was  a  narrow  one,  and 
the  episode  not  merely  increased  existing  tension 
between  the  parties,  but  placed  the  Lutherans  in  the 
unfortunate  light  of  being  ready  to  begin  an  ag- 
gressive war  upon  neighbors  from  whose  religious 
fellowship  they  had  but  recently  separated. 

Moreover,  as  the  early  months  of  1529  passed,  it 
became  evident  that  the  renewed  struggle  of  the 
French  for  the  control  of  Italy  would  be  no  more 
successful  than  that  which  ended  for  the  time  at 
Pavia  in  1525.  The  premonitions  of  imperial  success 
were  evident  which  were  to  lead  to  peace  between 
Charles  V.  and  the  pope  at  Barcelona  on  June  29, 
1529,  and  between  Charles  and  his  rival,  Francis  L, 
at  Cambrai,  on  August  5  of  the  same  year— in 
both  instances  to  the  great  credit  of  the  young 
emperor.  It  was  plain,  therefore,  to  all  men  when  a 
new  Reichstag  met  at  Speier,  in  February,  1529,  that 
Charles  was  in  all  probability  soon  to  be  freer  to  in- 
terfere in  the  internal  affairs  of  Germany  than   he 


Protestants.  145 


had  been  since  the  Edict  of  Worms  had  placed 
Luther  under  the  ban  of  the  empire.  His  atti- 
tude of  hostility  to  the  Evangelical  movement  was 
well  known.  And  recent  events  in  Germany  which 
have  been  narrated  had  much  intensified  the  feeling 
and  drawn  more  sharply  the  line  of  demarkation  be- 
tween the  adherents  and  the  opponents  of  Rome. 
It  was  speedily  evident  not  merely  that  the  Roman 
party  had  a  decided  majority  in  the  Reichstag  of 
1529,  but  that  that  majority  was  determined  to  use 
its  power.  The  resolution  of  the  Reichstag  of  1526, 
under  which  the  Lutheran  territorial  churches  had 
been  organized,  was  declared  to  have  been  mis- 
understood, all  further  alterations  in  religious  mat- 
ters were  forbidden,  and  the  rights,  authority  and 
revenues  of  all  spiritual  officers  were  to  be  recog- 
nized. This  decision  would  have  been  not  merely 
a  limitation  of  the  further  progress  of  the  Evangel- 
ical movement ;  it  involved  a  practical  restoration 
of  the  Roman  authority  and  worship  in  lands  where 
they  had  been  rejected.  And,  therefore,  on  April 
19,  1529,  the  Evangelical  minority  at  Speier  deter- 
mined on  a  protest  against  these  decisions — a  pro- 
test that  was  put  in  legal  form  on  April  25,  and  that 
has  fixed  the  name  Protestant  forever  upon  the  op- 
ponents of  Rome.  To  this  protest  the  approval  of 
Johann,  elector  of  Saxony,  Philip  of  Hesse,  Georg 
of  Brandenburg,  Ernst  of  Liineburg,  and  Wolfgang 
of  Anhalt  was  given,  and  with  them  stood  fourteen 
imperial  cities — Strassburg,  Nuremberg,  Ulm,  Con- 
stance, Lindau,  Memmingen,  Kempten,  Nordlin- 
gen,  Heilbronn,  Reutlingen,    Isny,  St.  Gall,   Weis- 


146  The  Reformaizon. 

senburg  and  Windsheim.  It  was  a  notable  and 
formidable  union  of  central  territories  of  northern 
Germany  with  influential  cities  of  southern  Ger- 
many, and  the  two  elements  together  gave  the 
protest  great  significance  and  strength. 

Yet  it  was  evident  that  the  Evangelical  cause 
stood  in  sorer  peril  than  at  any  time  since  the 
Reichstag  at  Worms  ;  and,  therefore,  as  a  measure 
of  precaution  against  probable  attack,  the  elector  of 
Saxony  and  the  landgrave  of  Hesse,  on  April  22, 
entered  into  a  secret  league  of  defence  with  three 
powerful  southern  cities,  Strassburg,  Ulm  and  Nu- 
remberg. If  ever  there  was  a  time  when  the  powers 
of  Protestantism  needed  to  present  a  united  front  to 
the  rising  storm  of  conflict  it  was  now.  Yet  at  this 
supreme  moment  of  peril,  the  new  league  was 
broken  and  the  conservative  forces  of  European 
Protestantism  split  into  two  separate  and  largely 
discordant  parties  by  the  obtrusion  of  doctrinal 
differences  regarding  the  nature  of  Christ's  presence 
in  the  Supper,  and  by  Luther's  insistence  that  no 
union  with  those  who,  like  the  Protestants  of  Strass- 
burg, had  embraced  a  view  differing  from  the  Lu- 
theran on  this  question  could  be  permitted.  It 
would  be  too  much  to  affirm  that  the  results  of  this 
cleavage  have  ceased  to  be  felt  even  now,  when 
more  than  three  centuries  and  a  half  have  elapsed 
since  the  division.  To  comprehend  its  significance, 
it  is  necessary  to  turn  aside  from  the  story  of  the 
Saxon  revolt  to  that  of  the  development  of  a  con- 
temporary religious  revolution  in  German-speaking 
Switzerland. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   REVOLT   IN   GERMAN   SWITZERLAND. 

HOUGH  nominally  a  part  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  Switzerland  had  long 
been  a  group  of  independent  republics. 
However  arbitrary  and  aristocratic  its 
cantonal  magistracies  might  be,  it  dif- 
fered from  the  German  prince-ruled  states  in  that 
its  divisions  owned  no  local  lords.  Its  constitutions 
were,  therefore,  democratic  and  popular  as  compared 
with  anything  to  be  seen  in  Germany  outside  of  the 
imperial  cities.  As  a  whole,  Switzerland  was  a  poor 
land.  The  hardy  population  won  a  scanty  living 
from  its  mountain-sides.  The  industrial  develop- 
ment of  the  country  was  yet  in  the  future.  But  the 
Swiss  cities,  though  small,  were  the  seats  of  a  well- 
to-do  citizenship  ;  and,  beyond  other  non-Italian 
towns,  several  of  them  had  welcomed  the  revival  of 
learning.  Erasmus,  for  instance,  found  a  home  and 
a  publisher  in  Basel.  And  Switzerland  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century  had  a  strong  claim 
upon  the  attention  of  its  neighbors.  The  Swiss  in- 
fantry was  reputed  the  most  steadfast  in  Europe  ; 
and  the  European  wars  of  conquest  which  began 

M7 


148  The  Re/ormaiwn. 

with  the  French  expedition  against  Naples,  in  1494, 
not  only  brought  the  sons  of  Switzerland  into  great 
demand  as  mercenary  soldiers,  but  the  efforts  of  the 
contestants  in  the  struggle  for  Italy,  especially  of 
France  and  the  papacy,  to  secure  the  services  of 
these  much-prized  troops  brought  a  considerable  in- 
flux of  money  into  Switzerland,  and  led  to  the  pay- 
ment of  many  foreign  pensions  to  Swiss  of  influence 
throughout  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
This  foreign  service  gave  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  world  ;  but  it  was  undoubtedly  demoralizing  in 
high  degree  to  the  young  men  of  the  land.  Yet  so 
great  were  its  rewards  that  it  was  looked  upon  with 
much  favor  by  a  large  portion  of  the  population. 

For  various  causes,  some  of  which  have  been  in- 
timated, the  hold  of  the  Roman  Church  upon  a 
considerable  section  of  the  people  of  Switzerland 
had  been  weakened  by  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  The  political  constitution  of  the 
land  made  it  peculiarly  favorable  to  the  rise  of  a 
religious  revolution.  By  reason  of  their  small  terri- 
torial extent  and  their  autonomy,  the  Swiss  cantons 
were  peculiarly  open  to  the  influence  of  local  leaders. 
To  induce  a  board  of  magistrates  or  a  council  to 
sanction  a  change  was  a  far  simpler  thing  than  to 
move  a  prince  who  was  the  head  of  an  extensive 
state  ;  and  hence  Switzerland  presented  a  field 
where,  if  reformatory  effort  was  begun,  it  might  be 
radical  and  speedy  in  its  manifestations.  The  po- 
litical training  of  the  land,  moreover,  was  sure  to 
render  any  reformation  more  democratic  than  in 
Germany, 


Ulrich  ZwinglL  149 

The  beginnings  of  the  revolt  in  German  Switzer- 
land were  as  much  bound  up  in  the  development  of 
a  life  as  were  those  of  the  Saxon  revolution.  The 
Swiss  leader  was  not,  indeed,  of  the  towering  per- 
sonality of  Luther.  In  a  measure  his  later  work 
was  made  possible  by  that  of  the  greater  German. 
But  he  well  deserves  a  place  among  the  four  or  five 
master-spirits  to  whom  the  Reformation  was  most 
conspicuously  indebted. 

Ulrich  Zwingli  was  born  of  a  family  of  some  local 
prominence,  though  of  peasant  rank,  in  the  little  vil- 
lage of  Wildhaus,  in  the  present  canton  of  St.  Gall, 
on  January  i,  1484,  being  thus  only  a  few  weeks 
younger  than  Luther.  His  parents,  who  seem  to 
have  been  excellent  people;  early  determined  to 
give  the  boy  an  education,  and  a  paternal  uncle, 
Barthomaus  Zwingli,  dean  of  Wesen,  took  him  to 
his  own  home  and  provided  for  his  earliest  schooling. 
At  ten  years  of  age  he  was  placed  in  the  excellent 
school  kept  by  Gregovius  Biinzli  at  Basel,  from 
which  he  passed,  in  1498,  to  the  instruction  of  the 
most  eminent  humanistic  scholar  then  in  Switzer- 
land, Heinrich  Wolflin  of  Berne.  Two  years  of 
this  training  in  the  new  learning  was  followed  by  an 
equal  period  of  classical  study  at  the  University  of 
Vienna,  from  which  he  returned  to  Basel  to  teach 
Latin  and  to  study  philosophy.  The  theological 
lectures  of  Thomas  Wyttenbach  (1472--1 526),  with 
their  criticisms  of  indulgences,  their  assertion  of  the 
centrality  of  faith  in  Christ's  atonement  for  all  for- 
giveness, and  their  insistence  on  a  return  from 
scholastic   theology  to    the  fathers  and  the  Bible. 


150  The  Reformation. 

greatly  impressed  the  young  teacher,  and  supple- 
mented along  congenial  lines  the  humanistic  trend 
of  his  education.  Here,  at  Basel,  Zwingli  took  the 
degree  of  Master  of  Philosophy  in  1506,  He  was  in 
full  sympathy  with  the  new  learning,  and  inclined, 
like  all  humanists,  to  go  back  to  the  grand  classics 
of  religious  truth  as  well  as  to  the  classics  of  litera- 
ture for  that  which  was  really  authoritative.  Like 
Luther,  he  was  proficient  in  music,  and  an  agreeable 
companion.  But,  unlike  Luther,  he  had  not  passed 
through  deep  searchings  of  soul  as  to  his  own  per- 
sonal justification.  That  was  never  to  be  his  ex- 
perience. To  Luther  the  question,  "  How  may  I 
gain  a  gracious  God  ?"  was  the  first  of  all  questions. 
Its  answer  was  the  test  of  a  standing  or  a  falling 
Church.  In  comparison  with  its  right  answer,  all 
other  problems  of  doctrine  or  of  organization  were 
relatively  unimportant.  To  Zwingli  the  first  of  all 
questions  was  less  personal.  It  was  rather  the 
purity  of  the  Church,  its  doctrines,  its  worship,  its 
organization  as  tested  by  that  primal  classic  char- 
ter, the  Scriptures.  Both  reformers  reached  similar 
results  in  many — but  by  no  means  all — things  ;  but 
their  methods  of  approach  were  somewhat  unlike, 
owing  to  diversities  of  natural  genius  and  training. 
This  want  of  a  tempestuous  spiritual  experience, 
such  as  Luther  had,  has  often  been  treated  as  if  it 
were  a  reproach  to  Zwingli,  but  most  unjustly.  It 
is  true  that  his  early  ministry  had  not  the  moral 
earnestness  or  the  moral  purity  that  Luther  showed  ; 
but  no  one  can  question  his  sincerity,  his  zeal,  or 
his  spiritual  power  from  the  time  that  his  real  work 
as  a  reformer  was  begun. 


Ulrich  Zwingli.  151 

At  the  time  of  his  attainment  of  the  Master's 
degree  in  1506,  however,  the  reformer  had  not  yet 
appeared  in  Zwingli,  and  he  stood  forth  simply  a 
somewhat  religiously  inclined  young  humanist, 
sympathetic  with  the  usual  humanistic  criticisms  of 
the  evils  of  the  Church  and  the  humanistic  sugges- 
tions for  its  betterment.  This  was  his  attitude 
when,  late  in  1506,  he  became  the  parish  priest  at 
Glarus,  Here  he  zealously  studied  the  Latin  clas- 
sics, and  taught  himself  Greek  that  he  might  read 
the  New  Testament.  Here,  after  a  time,  he  began 
a  correspondence  with  that  prince  of  humanists, 
Erasmus,  whom  he  visited  in  1515.  From  here  he 
accompanied  the  Swiss  troops  as  chaplain  on  several 
Italian  campaigns,  probably  those  of  15 12,  15 13, 
and  1 5 1 5 — campaigns  on  which  he  witnessed  severe 
fighting  and  which  strengthened  his  sense  of  the 
moral  dangers  that  they  involved  for  the  young 
men  of  Switzerland,  and  his  patriotic  determination 
to  do  his  part  to  prevent  the  foreign  alliances  that 
called  his  parishioners  so  far  from  their  homes. 
Here  he,  like  many  of  the  clergy  of  his  age  and 
country,  fell  into  some  breaches  of  his  vow  of 
chastity,  yet  without  losing  thev  good-will  of  his 
congregation  as  a  whole.  Here  his  oratorical  skill 
and  his  patriotism  gained  him  a  considerable  repu- 
tation throughout  northern  Switzerland,  and  his 
pastorate  seems  to  have  run  its  course  without 
serious  disturbance  till  the  rising  hostility  of  the 
French  party,  whose  employment  of  Swiss  merce- 
naries he  opposed,  emboldened  as  it  was  by  the 
French   victory   at  Marignano,  induced  him  to  re- 


152  The  Refonnatiofi. 

move  from  Glarus  to  Einsiedeln  in  15 16,  without, 
however,  resigning  his  Glarus  charge,  to  which  he 
planned  ultimately  to  return. 

Einsiedeln  is  to  this  day  a  famous  pilgrim-shrine  ; 
and  the  young  minister,  brought  thus  in  daily  con- 
tact with  one  of  the  most  characteristic  and  least 
Scriptural  manifestations  of  mediaeval  piety,  doubt- 
less grew  rapidly  in  his  conviction  of  the  manifold 
unlikeness  of  the  Church  as  it  existed  to  the  indica- 
tions of  its  character  discernible  in  the  Bible,  which 
he  already  looked  upon  as  the  sole  standard.  In- 
deed, Zwingli  himself,  in  later  years,  looked  back 
upon  his  Einsiedeln  ministry  as  already  of  a  re- 
formatory character ;  so  that  some  have  reckoned 
his  work  earlier  than  that  of  Luther.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly to  give  it  a  positive  character  that  it  did 
not  yet  possess.  Zwingli  was  rapidly  thinking  him- 
self free  along  the  line  which  humanism  had  marked 
out  and  under  the  impulse  of  constant  study  of  the 
Scriptures  ;  but  he  did  not  yet  feel  the  personal 
call  to  be  a  leader  in  reform,  and  he  drew  his  in- 
come in  considerable  part  from  fees  for  masses  for 
the  living  and  the  dead,  for  confessions,  and  from  a 
papal  pension  which  he  had  received  about  1515 
and  was  to  hold  till  1520.  His  real  reformatory 
work  was  to  begin  after  his  entrance  of  a  larger 
field  of  activity  at  Zurich. 

Zwingli's  call  to  the  most  eminent  pastoral  posi- 
tion in  Zurich  came  in  December,  15 18,  partly  by 
reason  of  his  fame  as  a  preacher,  but  even  more  on 
account  of  the  agreement  of  his  patriotic  political 
views  with  those  of  the  anti-French  party,  of  which 


Zwingli  at  Zurich.  153 

Zurich  was  the  stronghold.  The  Httle  city  of  seven 
thousand  inhabitants  was  the  most  eminent  in  Swit- 
zerland through  its  political  influence  and  wealth, 
and  Zwingli  at  once  took  a  position  of  leadership  in 
its  affairs.  It  was  illustrative  of  his  attitude  toward 
the  Bible  that  with  the  opening  of  his  pastorate  he 
began  the  exposition  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  as  a 
whole  instead  of  following  the  usual  lessons.  A 
preacher  of  ethical  and  spiritual  power,  his  pastoral 
zeal  during  the  ravages  of  a  pestilence,  which  swept 
away  a  third  of  the  inhabitants  of  Ziirich  in  the 
summer  of  15 19,  endeared  him  to  the  people,  while 
his  own  near  approach  to  death  by  the  dreaded  dis- 
ease developed  his  spiritual  nature.  Luther's  doc- 
trines were  being  discussed,  in  Switzerland  as  in 
Germany,  and  though  Zwingli's  development  had 
been  independent  of  Luther,  Lutheran  thoughts 
necessarily  made  much  impression  upon  him.  But 
though  Zwingli's  politics  and  his  preaching  brought 
him  many  enemies,  some  of  whom  charged  him 
with  being  a  thorough  Lutheran,  his  breach  with 
the  ancient  Church  did  not  come  till  the  spring  of 
1522,  when  he  rejected  the  Lenten  fast  as  an  ordi- 
nance of  man  without  Scriptural  support.  Reproved 
by  the  bishop  of  Constance,  to  whose  diocese  Zurich 
belonged,  and  by  the  Zurich  city  government, 
Zwingli  defended  his  position  in  his  first  printed 
tract,  Von  crkiesen  und  fryheit  der  spysen ;  and, 
when  that  publication  led  to  further  efforts  by  his 
bishop  to  silence  him,  he  put  forth  his  more 
elaborate  Archeteles,  in  which  he  entered  into  a 
much  wider  criticism  of  Roman  usages  and  asserted 


154  The  Reformation. 

the  superior  authority  of  Scripture.  The  battle 
was  now  fully  begun. 

In  the  summer  following  the  beginning  of  this 
discussion,  Zwingli  took  a  further  step  in  opposition 
to  existing  usages.  Ten  priests  joined  with  him  in 
petitions  to  their  bishop  and  to  the  representatives 
of  the  Swiss  cantons  praying  that  the  Gospel  might 
freely  be  preached  and  priestly  marriage  permitted. 
At  the  time  of  this  petition,  or  shortly  after,  Zwingli 
was  no  longer  a  celibate  priest,  for,  some  time  in 
the  year  1522,  he  contracted  a  marriage  with  a 
widow  two  years  his  senior,  Anna  Reinhart  by  name 
— a  connection  which  he  did  not  acknowledge 
openly  till  April,  1524.  To  them  four  children  were 
born,  of  whom  two  grew  to  maturity  and  attained 
honorable  positions  in  the  Ziirich  community. 

Such  events  could  not  take  place  without  deeply 
stirring  not  only  the  town  of  Zwingli's  ministry,  but 
all  the  region  ;  and  the  Ziirich  burgomaster  and 
councils,  uncertain  what  attitude  to  take,  resorted 
to  what  had  long  been  a  favorite  method  of  ascer- 
taining the  truth  with  universities  and  learned 
bodies,  but  was  comparatively  novel  in  the  vernac- 
ular and  before  a  popular  audience — a  public  debate. 
It  is  significant  of  the  departure  from  mediaeval  con- 
ceptions which  had  already  been  effected  at  Ziirich 
that  these  civil  rulers  laid  down  as  a  condition-prece- 
dent to  the  discussion  that  its  arguments  must  be 
drawn  from  the  Bible.  In  preparation  for  the  event, 
Zwingli  published  sixty-seven  theses,  asserting  the 
sole  authority  of  the  Scriptures  and  their  independ- 
ence of  all  churchly  sanction,  declaring  the  Church 


Ptiblic  Debates.  155 


to  be  the  association  of  believ^ers  and  Christ  their 
immediate  head,  affirming  salvation  to  be  by  faith, 
rejecting  all  mediatorship  but  that  of  Christ,  urging 
clerical  marriage,  arguing  that  confession  is  properly 
a  consultation  as  to  one's  spiritual  state,  not  a 
means  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  casting  aside 
as  unscriptural  required  fastings,  purgatory  and 
works  of  satisfaction.  Zwingli  asserted  in  these 
theses  most  positively  the  divine  authority  of  civil 
rulers,  and  the  duty  of  obedience  to  their  behests  ; 
but  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  in  this  first  ex- 
tensive statement  of  faith  he  qualifies  that  obedi- 
ence as  due  only  "in  so  far  as  they  command  noth- 
ing contrary  to  God."  That  was  the  note,  struck 
yet  more  loudly  by  Calvin,  that  was  clearer  than 
any  other  to  be  the  call  to  popular  freedom  wherever 
the  Swiss  Reformation  extended.  That  principle  it 
was,  more  than  any  other,  which  translated  the  in- 
tellectual individualism  of  the  Renascence  and  the 
spiritual  individualism  of  the  Reformation  into  po- 
litical freedom.  For  it  placed  in  the  hands  of  every 
thinking  man  a  test,  personal  to  himself,  of  the 
rightfulness  of  any  statute  or  ordinance  of  king  or 
magistrate  :  Did  it  conform  to  the  Word  of  God,  not 
as  doctors  or  councils  may  have  interpreted  that 
Word,  but  as  he  understood  it  ?  The  right  to  ask 
that  question  drew  with  it  consequences  far  beyond 
the  dream  of  those  who  first  promulgated  it,  for  it 
taught  the  common  man  not  only  that  he  might 
criticise  the  acts  of  his  rulers  by  a  standard  higher 
than  their  will,  but  that  it  was  his  duty  so  to  criti- 
cise, and  to  resist  if,  thus  judged,   their  acts  were 


156  The  Reformation. 

found  wanting.  Yet  the  far-reaching  results  of  this 
principle  were  not  conceivably  in  Zwingli's  thought 
when  the  great  debate  for  which  these  theses  were 
prepared  took  place  before  the  magistrates  and 
clergy  of  the  canton  of  Zurich,  and  some  men  of 
prominence  from  neighboring  towns,  on  January  29, 
1523.  Here  Zwingli  triumphed,  in  the  estimate  of 
his  hearers,  over  his  opponent,  Johann  Faber, 
vicar  of  Constance,  who  represented  the  bishop  of 
the  diocese.  The  magistrates  gave  their  approval 
to  Zwingli  and  his  work. 

This  victory  led  at  once  to  considerable  modifica- 
tions of  public  worship,  and  also,  a  few  months 
after,  to  a  mob  attack  on  images,  which,  though 
congenial  to  Zwingli's  strict  interpretation  of  the 
second  commandment  of  the  Hebrew  Decalogue,  was 
far  too  lawless  in  method  to  meet  his  approval.  As 
a  consequence,  the  use  of  images  and  the  continu- 
ance of  the  mass  were  debated  in  a  second  public 
disputation  in  October,  1523.  Though  the  image- 
breakers  were  punished,  popular  feeling  against  such 
aids  to  worship  was  intensified.  At  the  request  of 
the  civil  rulers  of  Zurich,  Zwingli  now  issued  a  little 
manual  of  religious  instruction,  Ein  kiirz  cJiristcn- 
liche  Ynleitung,  which  was  placed  by  the  authorities 
in  the  hands  of  every  priest  of  the  canton,  and  sent 
to  a  number  of  the  adjacent  bishops  and  civil  gov- 
ernments. In  spite  of  protests  by  the  bishop  of 
Constance,  to  whose  diocese  Ziirich  had  belonged, 
and  by  the  representatives  of  the  Swiss  cantons 
gathered  in  their  Diet,  against  the  changes  which 
had  already  taken  place  at  Zurich,   pictures,   cru- 


Radical  Alterations.  157 

cifixes  and  images  were  removed  from  the  city 
churches  in  June,  1524,  reHcs  were  buried,  holy 
water  was  done  away  with,  organs  silenced,  and 
frescoed  walls  whitewashed  as  an  effective  method 
of  making  a  tabula  rasa  of  the  symbols  of  the  older 
worship.  These  acts  Zwingli  defended  as  an  aboli- 
tion of  idolatry  in  a  reply  to  Zurich's  critics  put 
forth  in  the  following  August. 

Such  changes  were  naturally  followed  by  exten- 
sive alterations  in  public  services.  Zwingli  had 
already  given  great  prominence  to  the  sermon.  At 
Easter-tide,  in  1525,  the  new  communion  took  the 
place  of  the  mass ;  the  communicants  sitting  at 
tables,  the  men  on  the  one  side,  the  women  on  the 
other.  A  liturgy  prepared  by  Zwingli  was  intro- 
duced at  this  communion,  which  became  the  model 
for  similar  services  throughout  Switzerland  and 
southern  Germany.  In  the  language  of  the  people, 
like  the  Deutsche  Messe,  which  Luther  put  forth  nine 
months  later,  it  departed  much  more  from  the 
Roman  order  than  did  the  Wittenberg  formula ; 
but  its  most  peculiar  feature  was  the  substitution 
of  the  responsive  reading  by  minister,  men  and 
women,  of  the  Creed  and  the  Gloria  for  any  service 
of  song.  Save  in  these  responses  at  the  Supper, 
the  people  were  given  no  audible  share  in  the  new 
worship.  This  rejection  of  singing  was  not  charac- 
teristic of  the  Zwinglian  churches,  as  a  whole,  how- 
ever ;  though  it  was  to  continue  at  Zurich  till  1598. 
With  the  revolution  of  the  communion  service  came 
its  restriction  to  four  administrations  yearly,  and 
the  reduction  of  all  days  of  sacred  observance  to 


158  The  Reforjjialioii. 

Sundays,  Christmas,  Good  Friday,  Easter  and  Pen- 
tecost. The  emptying  of  the  churches  of  all  deco- 
ration that  seemed  to  Zwingli  and  his  associates  to 
savor  of  idolatry,  the  extreme  simplification  of  the 
services,  the  rejection  of  saints'  days,  and  the 
prominence  given  to  the  Bible  and  the  sermon, 
imparted  to  the  Swiss  churches  from  the  first  that 
unadorned  and  severely  intellectual  character  and 
form  of  worship  which  has  been  the  heritage  of  the 
Reformed  Churches  of  France,  Holland  and  the 
Rhine  valley,  the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  the 
Puritans  of  England  and  their  offspring  in  America 
— all  of  whom  trace  no  inconsiderable  part  of  their 
spiritual  ancestry  back  to  the  Swiss  revolution. 

Contemporaneously  with  these  events  the  eccle- 
siastical constitution  of  Zurich  was  transformed. 
In  December,  1524,  the  suppression  of  the  monas- 
teries began.  Regulations  for  joint  care  of  the 
poor  by  the  ministry  and  the  state  and  for  the 
establishment  of  hospitals  were  adopted  in  1525; 
and  a  considerable  portion  of  the  confiscated  eccle- 
siastical property  Avas  employed  for  this  use,  as  well 
as  for  the  establishment  of  schools,  chief  of  which 
was  a  theological  seminary — the  CaroHnum — opened 
in  June,  1525.  The  desire  for  an  educated  ministry 
found  thus  an  early  manifestation  in  the  Swiss 
reform  movement.  The  authority  of  the  bishop  of 
Constance  was  ignored  and  practically  rejected  from 
the  beginning  of  Zwingli's  reformatory  efforts,  and 
in  his  stead  the  civil  magistrates  of  the  canton  took 
the  place  of  authority  in  appointing  ministers  and 
regulating    ecclesiastical    affairs.     Yet   their    most 


Reorganization  of  the  Church.        159 

influential  adviser  was  Zwingli  as  long  as  he  lived, 
and  his  successors  in  the  pastorate  of  the  chief 
Ziirich  church — for  example,  Heinrich  Bullinger — 
were  looked  upon  as  the  spiritual  leaders  of  the 
canton.  And  Zwingli  secured  the  addition,  in  1528, 
to  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  of  Zurich  of  a  body 
representative  both  of  Church  and  State — the  synod 
— embracing  every  minister  of  the  canton,  two  lay- 
men from  each  of  its  parishes,  and  eight  representa- 
tives of  the  government.  To  this  synod,  rather 
than  to  the  civil  magistrates,  immediate  oversight  of 
doctrine  and  morals  was  committed.  In  its  consti- 
tution it  recognized  the  full  share  of  the  Christian 
layman  in  the  government  of  the  Church,  which  has 
ever  been  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  Swiss 
churches  and  of  those  spiritually  descended  from 
them. 

These  extensive  changes,  carried  into  effect  with 
so  slight  confusion,  show  not  merely  that  the  hold 
of  the  Roman  Church  upon  Ziirich  had  become 
greatly  weakened,  but  that  Zwingli  possessed  polit- 
ical talents  of  a  high  order.  In  him  the  statesman 
and  the  organizer  are  no  less  manifest  than  the 
reformer.  But  as  Luther  seemed  to  the  more  radi- 
cal elements  that  his  revolt  awoke  in  Germany  but 
a  half-hearted  reformer,  so  to  a  large  party  in 
Zurich  and  its  vicinity  Zwingli  appeared  to  halt  in 
a  position  no  more  satisfactory  than  that  of  the 
papacy.  Whether  the  spiritual  descendants  of 
mediaeval  anti-Roman  sects  that  the  breach  with 
Rome  called  into  new  activity,  or  simply  the  most 
extreme  wing  of  the  revolution,  or  representative 


i6o  The  Reformation. 

of  both  streams  of  tendency,  the  radicals  of  northern 
Switzerland,  made  up  in  the  main  of  those  who  had 
been  foremost  in  welcoming  Zwingli's  first  efforts, 
were  drawing  away  from  him  by  1523.  Men  like 
Conrad  Grebel,  a  member  of  an  eminent  patrician 
family  of  Zurich  ;  Felix  Manz,  a  scholarly  Hebraist, 
the  son  of  a  Zurich  canon  ;  Georg  Blaurock,  a 
former  monk  of  Chur,  or  Wilhelm  Reublin,  the  first 
priest  of  the  Zurich  region  publicly  to  take  a  wife, 
wished  to  go  much  further  than  Zwingli  would  lead. 
As  influential  as  any  of  those  just  mentioned, 
though  not  living  in  the  Zurich  territory,  was  one 
of  the  noblest  of  the  radical  martyrs  of  Reformation 
age,  Balthasar  Hubmaier,  once  an  intimate  friend 
of  Luther's  eminent  opponent,  Eck,  and  a  teacher 
in  the  Ingolstadt  University,  but  now  a  preacher  of 
ever-increasing  radicalism  at  Waldshut  from  1 521 
to  the  close  of  1525. 

The  fuller  story  of  the  movement  which  these 
men  represented  must  be  reserved  to  a  later  chapter. 
It  is  sufficient  now  to  point  out  that  they  would 
have  had  Zwingli  destroy  images  and  abolish  the 
mass  a  number  of  months  before  he,  with  his  keen 
sense  of  what  was  politically  feasible,  thought  it 
wise  to  do  so  ;  that  they  asserted  that  the  Christian 
believers  in  each  community  should  establish  pure, 
self-governed  and  separate  churches,  independent 
of  all  control  by  civil  rulers,  thus  destroying  the 
state-churches,  in  which  Zwingli  no  less  than  Luther 
believed;  and  that,  by  the  spring  of  1524,  they 
began  to  deny  the  rightfulness  of  infant  baptism, 
going  on  to  the  rejection  of  their  own  baptism  in 


The  A7iabaptists.  i6i 

the  Roman  Church  and  the  establishment  of  be- 
lievers' baptism  by  the  baptism  of  Blaurock  by 
Grebel  in  December,  1524,  or  January,  1525.  To 
the  trait  last  mentioned  they  owe  the  nickname, 
always  rejected  by  them,  "Anabaptists,"  or  re- 
Baptists,  by  which  they  are  known  to  history. 
These  radical  manifestations  were  the  beginnings  of 
religious  movements  that  great  and  orderly  com- 
munions, especially  of  England  and  America,  now 
hold  in  honor  ;  but  to  Zwingli,  as  to  the  Lutheran 
leaders  of  Germany,  they  seemed  the  destruction  of 
all  order,  and  the  deadliest  enemies,  therefore,  of 
the  Reformation. 

Zwingli  was,  indeed,  in  a  somewhat  embarrassing 
position  regarding  the  baptismal  issue.  Unlike 
Luther  and  the  mediaeval  Roman  divines,  he  saw 
no  absolute  necessity  for  baptism  as  a  condition  of 
salvation.  His  humanistic  studies  inclined  him  to 
entertain  the  belief  that  many  of  the  heathen  are 
of  the  number  of  the  redeemed.  He  was  confident 
that  every  elect  infant,  baptized  or  unbaptized,  is 
saved  ;  and  he  was  strongly  hopeful  that  all  the  in- 
fant dead,  of  whatever  parentage,  are  of  the  elect. 
To  him,  therefore,  infant  baptism  was  not  a  matter 
of  such  vital  importance  as  to  Lutherans  or  Roman- 
ists ;  and  in  his  early  pastorate  at  Zurich  he  had  in- 
clined to  the  opinion  that  baptism  might  be  deferred 
to  advantage  till  years  of  discretion,  though  he  had 
not  put  the  opinion  into  practice.  But  with  the 
growth  of  the  radical  movement  and  its  demand  for 
a  separated  Church  of  Christian  believers,  Zwingli 
came  to  attach  greater  importance  to  infant  baptism. 


1 62  The  Reformatio?!. 

A  state-church  without  it  was  unthinkable,  and 
without  a  state-church  to  sustain  the  contest  the 
struggle  with  Rome  seemed  hopeless.  And  Zwingli 
came  also  to  feel  that,  though  not  directly  com- 
manded in  the  Word  of  God,  the  weight  of  Biblical 
teaching  made  strongly  for  infant  baptism.  The 
customary  method  for  the  settlement  of  religious 
questions  at  Zurich — a  public  discussion — was  now 
tried,  on  January  17,  1525,  and  again  on  March  20. 
and  on  November  6  ;  in  all  of  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  Zurich  government,  Zwingli  triumphed  over 
his  Anabaptist  opponents. 

Strengthened  thus  by  what  they  deemed  victorious 
argument,  the  civil  authorities,  in  January,  1525, 
ordered  all  children  baptized  within  eight  days. 
The  Anabaptists,  whose  numbers  were  rapidly  mul- 
tiplying not  only  in  Zurich  but  throughout  the 
region,  opposed  the  order  with  riotous  counter- 
demonstrations.  Their  leaders  were  arrested  and 
imprisoned  ;  but  Anabaptist  views  seemed  extremely 
threatening  to  those  who  sympathized  with  Zwingli. 
By  far  the  greater  number  of  the  seventy  Anabaptist 
congregations  that  came  into  existence  in  the  can- 
ton of  Zurich  before  the  Anabaptists  were  mastered 
arose  in  these  first  three  or  four  years  of  the  move- 
ment. The  Zurich  authorities,  not  without  the  ap- 
proval of  Zwingli  we  must  believe,  were  led  at  last  to 
add  death  to  imprisonment,  stripes  and  banishment, 
and  on  January  5,  1527,  Felix  Manz  became  the  first 
Anabaptist  martyr  at  Zurich,  meeting  his  death  with 
heroic  firmness — a  death  by  drowning,  in  hideous 
parody  on  his  doctrine  of  believers'  baptism. 


The  Anabaptists.  i6 


o 


In  estimating  such  a  scene,  one  must  remember 
that  the  sixteenth  century  was  not  the  nineteenth 
or  the  twentieth  ;  and  that  the  peril  to  the  Reforma- 
tion cause,  as  he  understood  that  cause,  seemed 
very  real  to  Zwingli.  Nor  was  he  alone  in  the  per- 
secution of  the  Anabaptists.  Every  man's  hand 
was  against  them,  and  before  1530  had  passed  no 
less  than  two  thousand,  it  is  believed,  had  suffered 
death  in  the  various  countries  of  central  Europe 
over  which  they  spread — Catholics  and  Protestants 
were  alike  their  persecutors. 

While  the  events  just  narrated  were  in  progress, 
the  Reformation,  in  its  Zwinglian  type,  was  spread- 
ing through  northern  Switzerland  and  affecting  the 
neighboring  parts  of  Germany.  It  had,  indeed,  no 
legal  standing  in  Switzerland  as  a  whole,  whatever 
local  legal  authority  it  might  enjoy.  The  Swiss 
Diet,  representative  of  the  confederacy  of  cantons, 
after  a  public  disputation  at  Baden  in  Aargau  in 
May  and  June,  1526,  wherein  Luther's  old  oppo- 
nent, Eck,  defended  the  Roman  cause  and  from 
which  Zwingli  was  absent,  ordered  that  all  innova- 
tions in  worship  should  cease,  and  condemned  the 
innovators. 

But  in  much  of  Switzerland  this  prohibition  was 
of  no  effect.  In  Berne,  Berthold  Haller  (1492-1536), 
who  had  been  a  teacher  in  the  gymnasium  since 
1513,  and  chief  pastor  since  1521,  laid  aside  the 
mass  in  1525,  influenced  by  Zwingli.  With  him  in 
opposition  to  Rome  stood  Sebastian  Meyer,  a  Fran- 
ciscan, and  Niklaus  Manuel  (1484-1530),  an  artist, 
poet  and  satirist  whose  writings  and  plays  had  great 


164  The  Re/ormaizon, 

popular  power.  The  cantonal  government,  after 
several  years  of  vacillation  and  indecision,  appointed 
a  public  disputation  in  January,  1528,  in  which  the 
Bernese  reformers  were  reinforced  in  debate  by 
Zwingli,  CEcolampadius  of  Basel,  and  Bucer  of 
Strassburg.  Their  victory  was  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  the  destruction  of  images  and  the  intro- 
duction, under  government  approval,  of  an  ecclesi- 
astical system  similar  to  that  of  Zurich.  For  the 
Zwinglian  movement  the  accession  of  Berne  was  a 
political  advantage  of  the  utmost  consequence. 

Almost  as  significant  was  the  winning  of  Basel 
for  the  new  movement.  There  Wolfgang  Capito 
(1478- 1 541),  later  to  be  a  leader  in  the  reformation 
of  Strassburg,  had  preached  in  the  humanistic 
spirit  from  15 15  to  15 19,  freely  criticising  the  abuses 
of  the  Church.  But  the  real  revolution  came 
through  the  work  of  Johann  CEcolampadius  (1482- 
1531),  a  name  second  in  the  reformation  history  of 
northern  Switzerland  only  to  that  of  Zwingli.  A 
man  of  great  learning  in  Greek  and  Hebrew,  for  a 
considerable  time  a  warm  friend  of  Erasmus,  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  Luther  soon  after  the 
Saxon  reformer  began  his  labors.  In  1522  he 
entered  on  his  life-work  at  Basel  as  vicar  at  St. 
Martin's  and  professor  in  the  university,  and  the 
same  year  began  an  acquaintance  with  Zwingli 
which  was  to  bring  CEcolampadius  wholly  into  sym- 
pathy with  the  Zurich  leader's  views.  As  in  Berne, 
the  Basel  government  long  occupied  a  somewhat 
halting  position;  but  in  February,  1529,  a  mob 
rising  determined  it  for  the  newer  opinions,  and  a 


Berne,  Basel  and  Strassburg.         165 

revision  of  worship  and  government  like  to  but 
somewhat  less  radical  than  that  of  Ziirich  was  in- 
troduced. 

The  victory  of  the  Zwinglian  revolt  in  three  fore- 
most cities  of  German  Switzerland  was  accompanied 
by  its  success  in  many  smaller  places  and  territories, 
as  in  Appenzell,  Miilhausen,  St.  Gall,  and  SchafT- 
hausen.  But  a  more  important  conquest  was  the 
adhesion  of  several  of  the  cities  of  southern  Ger- 
many, and,  notably  among  them,  of  Strassburg. 
That  influential  city  had  early  welcomed  Luther's 
writings  and  Lutheran  preachers.  The  year  1 523  had 
witnessed  the  coming  thither  of  three  men  of  power, 
Wolfgang  Capito,  whom  we  have  already  seen  at 
Basel ;  Kaspar  Hedio  (1494-1552),  to  be  preacher  in 
the  noble  cathedral  ;  and,  greater  than  either, 
Martin  Bucer  (Butzer,  1491-1 55 1).  Born  at  Schlett- 
stadt  of  very  humble  parentage,  Bucer  became  a 
Dominican  and  an  eager  student  at  the  University 
of  Heidelberg.  There  he  was  won  for  the  Lutheran 
cause  by  an  address  to  which  he  listened  in  15 18 
from  Luther  himself.  By  1521  he  was  fully  com- 
mitted to  the  Reformation.  In  1522  he  married  a 
nun,  and,  in  1523,  he  entered  on  his  reformatory 
work  at  Strassburg,  where  he  became  pastor  of  the 
church  of  St.  Aurelian  in  March  of  the  following 
year.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  Bucer  was  the 
religious  leader  of  Strassburg,  and  surpassed  only 
by  Luther  and  Melanchthon  in  influence  throughout 
Germany.  Driven  from  the  city  of  his  ministry,  in 
1549,  by  the  temporary  reverse  of  the  Protestant 
cause,  he  died  an  honored  teacher  of  theology  in 


1 66  The  Reformation. 

the  English  University  of  Cambridge.  Essentially 
a  man  of  peace,  who  labored  unceasingly  to  bring 
the  Saxon  and  the  Swiss  movements  into  harmony, 
he  grew  to  sympathize  with  Zwingli  rather  than 
with  Luther  on  the  question  most  in  dispute  be- 
tween those  forceful  leaders.  Strassburg  sympa- 
thized with  him,  and,  by  1530,  Constance,  Mem- 
mingen  and  Lindau  stood  with  it.  Yet,  though 
these  cities  were  Zwinglian  rather  than  Lutheran  in 
their  conceptions  of  worship  and  prevalent  theologic 
feeling,  they  were  not  as  intensely  Zwinglian  as 
Zurich,  Berne  and  Basel.  Like  Bucer  himself,  they 
long  occupied  a  position  mediating  between  the 
two  types  of  thought,  though  political  considera- 
tions later  allied  them  with  the  Lutherans. 

Zwingli's  theology  differed  from  that  of  Luther 
on  few  points  of  vital  significance.  Like  Luther,  he 
taught  the  sole  authority  of  Scripture  ;  like  Luther, 
he  asserted  that  justification  comes  by  faith  alone  ; 
like  Luther,  he  held  that  all  believers  are  a  royal 
priesthood  and  all  ministers  spiritually  equal.  Such 
unlikonesses  as  appeared  were  chiefly  due  to  differ- 
ences in  temperament  and  experience.  Thus,  orig- 
inal sin  appeared  to  Zwingli  a  defect  or  disease 
leading  to  personal  transgression,  but  without  per- 
sonal guilt  in  itself — a  position  little  resembling 
that  of  the  true  disciples  of  Augustine,  and  one 
which  made  easier  his  confidence  in  the  probable 
salvation  of  all  infants,  whether  baptized  or  not. 

But  if  Zwingli  thus  broke  with  Augustinianism 
on  one  important  point,  he  was  even  more  conse- 
quently Augustinian  than  Luther  on  another.     Lu- 


Contrasted  Theology,  167 

ther,  in  the  last  analysis,  indeed,  ascribed  salvation 
to  the  divine  election.  Faith,  with  him,  is  the  gift 
of  God.  The  human  will  is  bound.  But  to  Luther 
that  experience  of  personal  justification  by  which 
his  burden  of  sinfulness  had  been  lightened  was  so 
vivid  that  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
alone  was  always  the  central  truth  in  his  theology. 
When  he  asked  why  some  are  saved  and  others  not, 
he  gave  the  Augustinian  answer.  But  he  did  not 
often  ask  that  question.  The  query  that  was 
natural  to  him  was,  rather,  how  are  they  saved  ? 
To  the  cooler  and  more  logical  Zwingli  the  more 
central  question  appeared  that  of  the  primal  source 
of  salvation.  Faith  for  Zwingli  was  trust  in  God 
and  in  His  Word — a  more  general  conception  than 
Luther's  specific  confidence  in  forgiveness  of  per- 
sonal sin.  Justification  by  faith  seemed  to  Zwingli 
rather  the  method  by  which  certain  consequences 
of  election  are  accomplished  than  the  primal  fact. 
Indeed,  as  he  maintained  against  the  Anabaptists 
in  1527,  faith  is  but  the  fourth  in  a  series  of  which 
election,  predestination  and  vocation  are  preceding 
steps.  The  central  theologic  truth  in  salvation  is 
the  sovereign  choice  of  God.  The  difference  be- 
tween Luther  and  Zwingli  here  was,  broadly  speak- 
ing, one  of  emphasis  ;  but  it  was  a  diversity  which 
the  further  history  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
churches  and  the  leadership  of  Melanchthon  was 
greatly  to  increase. 

Much  more  important  than  any  divergence  be- 
tween Luther  and  Zwingli  thus  far  mentioned  was 
their  difference  regarding  the  nature  of  Christ's  pres- 


1 68  The  Reformation. 


ence  in  the  Supper.  Every  age  has  its  doctrines  error 
regarding  which  is  popularly  viewed  as  more  heinous 
than  error  regarding  other  matters  of  belief.  Such 
a  doctrine  of  prime  importance  in  the  estimate  of 
the  sixteenth  century  was  that  just  mentioned. 
Luther  and  Zwingli  were  at  one  in  denying  any 
propitiatory  character  to  the  Supper.  Both  rejected 
with  equal  strenuousness  the  Roman  view  that  it  is 
a  sacrifice  offered  by  the  priest  to  God.  Both  re- 
formers held  that  the  communicant  should  partake 
of  the  sacramental  wine  as  well  as  of  the  consecrated 
bread.  Both  viewed  it  as  a  communion  instituted 
by  Christ,  and  vital  to  the  Church,  as  well  as  life- 
giving  to  the  individual  believer.  But  here  their 
agreement  ceased. 

To  Luther,  strongly  mystical  by  nature,  it  seemed 
that  the  words  of  Scripture  could  bear  no  other 
interpretation  than  that  Christ's  physical  body  and 
blood  are  present  on  the  altar.  He  could  not,  in- 
deed, hold  the  view  of  the  Roman  Church,  to  which 
Aquinas  had  given  its  most  perfect  expression,  that 
the  bread  and  wine  are  transubstantiated  by  the 
eucharistic  miracle  into  the  body  and  blood  of  the 
Lord,  so  that  they  cease  to  be  the  substances  that 
they  were  before.  Moved  by  suggestions  which 
the  great  Parisian  theological  leader  of  the  Council 
of  Constance,  Pierre  d'Ailli,  had  dropped  a  century 
before,  Luther  had  come,  as  early  as  1520,  to  the 
conviction  that,  while  the  bread  remains  bread  and 
the  wine  wine  after  the  words  of  consecration, 
Christ's  physical  body  and  blood  are  truly  present 
with  them,  to  use  his  own  illustration,  as  fire  anC 


The  Sacramental  Dispute,  169 

iron  are  mingled  in  a  red-hot  bar.  From  this  view 
he  never  swerved. 

Zwingli,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  have  come 
to  the  conclusion,  soon  after  the  beginning  of  his 
Zurich  ministry,  that  the  main  value  of  the  Supper 
is  as  a  memorial  of  Christ's  sacrifice  fitted  to 
strengthen  our  faith  in  the  saving  work  wrought  for 
us  on  the  cross.  Yet,  as  late  as  July,  1523,  he  held 
that  Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper  is  physical. 
In  that  year,  however,  he  was  led  by  a  letter  of  the 
Dutch  lawyer,  Cornells  Hoen  of  the  Hague,  to  the 
conclusion,  which  he  ever  after  maintained,  that  the 
crucial  passage,  "This  is  my  body,"  might  justly  be 
interpreted,  "  This  signifies  my  body."  With  that 
conclusion,  Zwingli  abandoned  all  thought  of  a 
physical  presence  of  Christ's  body  in  the  sacrament. 
To  him  henceforth  the  Supper  was  a  memorial  of 
Christ's  death  and  a  symbol  of  membership  in  his 
mystical  body,  and  he  felt  strengthened  in  this 
rejection  of  all  physical  presence  by  Christ's  own 
words  as  reported  in  that  mysterious  sixth  chapter 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  :  ' '  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing. ' ' 
To  Zwingli,  moreover,  it  seemed  impossible  that  a 
physical  body  could  be  in  two  places  at  once,  in 
heaven  and  on  earth,  at  God's  right  hand  and  on 
many  altars — a  difficulty  which  Luther  attempted 
to  solve  by  a  theologic  device  more  ingenious  than 
convincing ;  that  is,  by  an  assertion  that  Christ's 
physical  nature,  like  his  spiritual  presence,  is 
wherever  God  is  in  the  world. 

The  beginnings  of  the  open  quarrel  between  the 
Saxon  and  the  Swiss  reformers  on  this  question 


I  70  The  Reformation. 

were  occasioned  by  Luther's  one-time  colleague, 
Carlstadt,  In  1524,  he  aroused  the  interest  of  the 
Strassburg  reformers,  Capito  and  Bucer,  by  a  fan- 
tastic interpretation  of  the  words  of  institution, 
asserting  that  Christ  had  indicated  not  the  bread, 
but  his  person,  to  which  he  had  doubtless  pointed 
when  he  used  the  word  "  this."  The  explanation 
was  valueless  enough  ;  but  the  Strassburg  divines 
applied  both  to  Luther  and  to  Zwingli  for  their 
opinions,  and  both  replied.  Luther  at  the  same 
time  published  his  bitter  attack  on  Carlstadt,  the 
Wider  die  himmlischen  Propheten,  in  which  he  set 
forth  his  doctrine  of  the  Supper.  Three  months 
later,  in  March,  1525,  Zwingli  made  his  position 
evident  in  his  Coimnentariiis  de  vera  et  falsa  Re- 
ligiojte ;  and  CEcolampadius  of  Basel  about  the 
same  time  supported  a  view  almost  identical  with 
that  of  Zwingli  in  a  volume  of  much  skill.  Others 
intermingled  in  the  controversy,  but  Luther  and 
Zwingli  were  the  chief  contestants.  Thus  far  neither 
had  attacked  the  other  directly. 

In  1526,  however,  Luther's  Sermon  vont  Sacrament 
was  put  forth  containing  the  assertion  that  Christ's 
human  nature  is  ubiquitous.  To  this  argument 
Zwingli  replied,  in  February,  1527,  with  a  courteous 
but  keen  Amica  Exegesis.  A  few  weeks  later,  how- 
ever, another  controversial  pamphlet  from  Luther's 
pen  appeared,  entitled.  Das  dise  Wort  Christi, 
''Das  ist  meyn  Lcib"  Jiock  feststehen  Wydder  dye 
Schwermergeister,  in  which  Luther  once  more  classed 
Zwingli  and  CEcolampadius  with  the  "  fanatics  "  like 
Carlstadt  and  the  Anabaptists,  and  affirrned   that 


The  Sacramental  Dispute.  i  7 1 

though  they  might  not  advance  their  views  out  of 
malice,  yet  they  did  so  because  blinded  by  Satan,  to 
whose  wiles  he  attributed  the  Swiss  interpretations. 
Zwingli  replied  in  the  following  June  (1527),  in  his 

Dass  dise  Worte  Jesu  Christi eiviglich  den 

alien  einigeti  Shin  haben  werdend,  carefully  refuting 
Luther's  arguments  one  by  one.  Though  avoiding 
Luther's  example  of  vituperation  for  the  most  part, 
Zwingli  treated  the  Saxon  reformer  not  only  with 
great  sharpness,  but  with  a  good  deal  of  haughtiness. 
To  him  Luther  made  answer  in  his  Vom  Abejidmal 
Christi  Bekejidnis,  of  March,  1528,  generally  called 
his  "  Great  Confession  on  the  Lord's  Supper."  In 
this  treatise  Luther  defended  his  well-known  views 
with  great  fulness,  and  with  the  violence  of  passion 
always  natural  to  him,  but  never  more  fully  dis- 
played than  in  this  bitter  dispute.  To  Luther 
Zwingli  and  CEcolampadius  both  replied. 

It  may  be  said,  as  partially  explanatory  of  Luther's 
violence,  that  these  were  years  of  peculiar  illness  and 
domestic  trial ;  but  these  are  not  the  chief  reasons. 
Zwingli's  denial  of  Christ's  physical  presence,  and 
his  assertion  that  the  Supper  is  a  pledge  of  our  loy- 
alty to  Christ  and  of  our  fellowship  with  his  people 
rather  than  a  means  of  grace  whereby  forgiveness 
is  mystically  attested  to  us,  hurt  Luther's  relig- 
ious sensibilities  to  the  quick.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  cool  and  logical  Zwingli  could  see  nothing  but  a 
relic  of  Roman  error  in  Luther's  view.  It  was  a  con- 
test of  the  older  mediaeval  theology  with  its  mystic 
and  objective  conception  of  the  sacraments,  and 
the  newer  rationalizing  critical  spirit  of  humanism. 


172  The  Reformation. 

Zwingli's  view  won  large  following.  It  was 
speedily  received  not  merely  in  German  Switzer- 
land, but  in  the  Rhine  valley  and  in  many  south 
German  towns.  At  Strassburg  it  met  the  approval 
of  Bucer  and  Hedio  ;  and  it  much  impressed  no  less 
a  personage  among  the  Lutheran  princes  of  northern 
Germany  than  Philip  of  Hesse.  And  so  it  came 
labout  that  when  the  threatening  political  situation 
of  Protestantism  became  manifest  in  the  spring  of 
1529,  and  a  defensive  league  was  formed  by  elec- 
toral Saxony,  Hesse,  Strassburg,  Ulm  and  Nurem- 
berg on  April  22,  as  narrated  in  the  last  chapter, 
Luther  could  denounce  the  union  with  Zwinglian 
Strassburg  as  one  that  would  send  "soul  and  body 
to  damnation."  Equally  evident  is  it  why  Philip, 
rather  than  any  of  the  other  members  of  this  politi- 
cal alliance,  should  be  the  one  to  attempt  to  har- 
monize the  differences  between  the  Saxon  and  the 
Swiss  reformers  by  a  joint  discussion,  which,  if  suc- 
cessful, would  give  real  life  to  the  league  so  severely 
denounced  and  so  much  needed  by  Protestantism. 
He  stood  in  some  degree  as  an  intermediary  be- 
tween both  parties. 

At  the  invitation  of  Landgrave  Philip,  repre- 
sentatives of  the  opposing  views  came  together  in 
the  Hessian  town  of  Marburg,  and  the  colloquy  be- 
tween them  was  opened  on  October  i,  1529.  For 
the  Swiss  theory  Zwingli  and  GEcolampadius  ap- 
peared as  the  chief  champions,  and  with  them  Bucer 
and  Hedio  of  Strassburg  ;  of  the  Saxon  school,  Lu- 
ther and  Melanchthon  were  the  foremost  debaters, 
and  they  were  accompanied  by  Justus  Jonas  (1493- 


The  Marburg  Colloquy.  17; 


1555)  and  Kaspar  Cruciger  (1504-48)  of  Witten- 
berg, Friedrich  Myconius  (1490-1546)  of  Gotha, 
Andreas  Osiander  (1498-1552)  of  Nuremberg, 
Stephan  Agricola  (?-i547)  of  Augsburg,  and  Jo- 
hann  Brenz  (1499-1570)  of  Hall.  The  Swiss  sym- 
pathizers had  come  willingly,  but  the  Lutherans 
would  have  been  absent  had  not  political  consider- 
ations induced  the  Saxon  elector  to  require  the 
presence  of  the  Wittenberg  theologians.  But  it  was 
not  merely  a  theological  repugnance  which  lay  be- 
hind Luther's  reluctance  and  led  Melanchthon,  in  his 
zeal  for  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  physical  presence  in 
the  Supper,  to  urge  that  Roman  divines  should  also 
be  invited.  The  Lutheran  theologians  feared 
Zwingli's  political  plans  as  well  as  his  heresy. 
Zwingli  was  hoping  for  a  great  combination  that 
might  force  peace  from  the  emperor  for  all  Prot- 
estants. To  that  end  he  was  ready  to  avail  himself 
of  any  political  aid,  and  Philip  of  Hesse  largely  sym- 
pathized with  him.  Luther  and  Melanchthon  fa- 
vored passive  obedience.  They  were  loyal  subjects 
of  the  emperor.  They  were  both  of  slight  political 
insight,  and  believed  with  confidence  that  the  truth, 
as  they  understood  it,  if  uncompromisingly  main- 
tained, would  somehow  triumph. 

It  was  with  slight  prospect  of  agreement,  there- 
fore, that  the  forces  of  divided  Protestantism 
gathered  at  Marburg.  After  fruitless  private  con- 
ferences held  by  Luther  with  Oicolampadius  and 
by  Melanchthon  with  Zwingli  on  the  first  of  October, 
the  general  debate  took  place  before  a  select  audi- 
ence on  the  second  and  third.     Luther,  Zwingli  and 


1 74  The  Reformation. 

QEcolampadius  were  the  only  participants  who 
spoke  at  length.  The  Wittenberg  disputant  an- 
nounced his  determination  not  to  abate  a  whit  from 
his  well-known  view  ;  and  in  emphasis  of  his  stead- 
fastness, he  wrote  on  the  table  before  him  with  chalk 
the  much-interpreted  declaration  of  the  Master, 
Hoc  est  corpus  viciun,  to  which  he  pointed  when 
pressed  in  debate.  The  old  arguments,  drawn  from 
the  sixth  chapter  of  John  and  from  the  impossibility 
of  a  physical  body  being  in  two  places  at  once,  were 
adduced  by  the  Swiss,  and  the  old  replies  made. 
Nothing  new  seems  to  have  been  presented.  But 
though  one  or  two  bursts  of  temper  from  either  side 
caused  a  momentary  commotion,  the  general  im- 
pression on  the  auditors  was  of  unexpected  courtesy. 
Yet  they  came  no  nearer  agreement  on  the  vital 
question.  Philip  would  not  let  the  union  thus  fail, 
if  he  could  prevent  it,  and  he  brought  the  chief  de- 
baters together  privately  on  October  4,  after  they 
supposed  the  discussion  closed.  Zwingli  offered  his 
hand  to  Luther,  with  the  entreaty  that  they  be  at 
least  Christian  brethren,  but  Luther  refused  it  and 
declared  that  the  Swiss  were  of  another  spirit.  He 
expressed  surprise  that  a  man  of  such  views  as 
Zwingli  should  wish  brotherly  relations  with  the 
Wittenberg  reformers.  It  was,  indeed,  a  melan- 
choly illustration  of  the  bitterness  of  doctrinal 
divisions  in  the  Reformation  age  and  of  Luther's 
uncharitableness  of  spirit.  Yet  it  is  but  fair  to  the 
Wittenburg  reformer  to  say  that  he  refused  Zwingli's 
profTered  hand  because  he  believed  that  to  take  it 
under  the  circumstances  would   mean  toleration  for 


The  Marburg  Colloquy.  175 

Zwingli's  opinions  ;  and  that  when  they  parted  at 
the  close  of  the  meetings,  and  no  more  was  implied 
by  the  act  than  mutual  respect  and  such  good-will 
as  may  exist  between  honorable  opponents,  the 
clasp  of  the  hand  was  not  omitted. 

At  the  Landgrave's  request,  Luther  drew  up  a 
brief  creed  in  fifteen  articles  treating  of  the  Trinity, 
the  incarnation,  divinity  and  humanity  of  Christ, 
original  sin,  justification  by  faith,  the  work  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  baptism,  good  works,  confession,  civil 
government,  Christian  liberty,  and,  lastly,  the  Sup- 
per. On  all  these  important  doctrines,  save  the 
last,  both  parties  expressed  agreement  ;  and  even 
on  the  final  article  they  agreed,  save  in  one  clause — 
that  on  the  presence.  Yet  when  Philip  of  Hesse 
urged  the  addition  of  the  promise,  "  the  one  side 
shall  cherish  Christian  love  for  the  other,"  the 
Lutherans  would  accept  the  phrase  only  with  the 
condition,  "in  so  far  as  the  conscience  of  each  shall 
allow."  To  Luther,  Zwingli  did  not  seem  really  a 
Christian.  So  modified,  the  representatives  of  the 
Saxon  and  of  the  Swiss  parties  signed  the  articles 
and  separated,  each  side  claiming  the  advantage. 

Neither  of  the  principal  contestants  was  disposed 
to  modify  his  position  by  this  debate.  Luther, 
though  for  a  time  somewhat  mollified  by  the  efforts 
of  Bucer  and  Hedio  to  arrive  at  an  understanding, 
wrote  only  a  month  before  his  death  :  "  Blessed  is 
the  man  that  walketh  not  in  the  counsel  of  the  Sac- 
ramentarians,  nor  standeth  in  the  way  of  the  Zwing- 
lians,  nor  sitteth  in  the  seat  of  the  Ziirichers." 
But    Philip  of    Hesse  and    Frangois   Lambert,  the 


1 76  The   Reformation. 

Hessian  reformer,  both  of  whom  were  auditors  of 
the  debate,  were  drawn  to  the  ZwingHan  side. 
Philip  was,  indeed,  too  much  bound  up  in  the  poli- 
tics of  northern  Germany  to  break  with  Luther  and 
Luther's  friend,  the  Saxon  elector  ;  but  he  had  a 
very  friendly  feeling  for  the  Zurich  reformer.  The 
Marburg  colloquy  made  manifest  to  all  that  the 
divisions  of  Protestantism  ran  too  deep  to  be  really 
healed,  however  they  might  be  glossed  over  by  re- 
luctant signatures  to  a  hollow  truce.  It  was  the 
most  ominous  event  that  had  thus  far  occurred  in 
Protestant  history. 

Zwingli's  last  few  months  were  filled  with  activity. 
He  pubHshed  a  commentary  on  Jeremiah  in  March, 
1531  ;  in  July,  1530,  he  addressed  a  Confession  of 
Faith  to  Charles  V.,  and  again  set  forth  his  creed 
with  an  appeal  to  Francis  L  of  France  in  July, 
1 53 1.  He  gave  much  attention  to  the  improvement 
of  education  and  of  morals  in  the  canton  of  Zurich. 
But  his  chief  interests  were  involved  in  far-reaching 
political  plans,  all  of  which  were  to  be  frustrated, 
but  from  which  he  hoped  much,  and  in  local  quarrels 
between  the  cantons  which  had  accepted  the  Evan- 
gelical faith  and  those  which  rejected  it.  Could 
Zwingli's  plans  have  been  realized,  a  great  Protestant 
league  would  have  been  formed  in  1529,  in  which 
all  opponents  of  Rome  would  have  been  united  and 
for  which  the  help  of  the  French  and  the  Venetians, 
he  hoped,  could  be  secured,  which  might  have 
forced  from  the  emperor  a  full  recognition  of  its 
right  to  be.  These  were  schemes  that  attracted 
Philip  of  Hesse  in  the  year  of  the  Marburg  colloquy 


Zwingli  Disappointed.  177 

and  helped  to  repel  Luther.  But  Zwingli  had  the 
pain  of  seeing  them  come  to  naught.  The  only 
union  of  Protestants  that  could  come  into  being  was 
a  Lutheran  union  in  which  Switzerland  had  no  share. 

Even  more  unfortunate  for  Zwingli's  hopes  was 
the  course  of  Swiss  local  politics.  While  the  can- 
tons containing  the  prosperous  cities  of  Zurich, 
Berne  and  Basel  declared  for  the  Reformation,  the 
five  forest  cantons,  Uri,  Schwyz,  Unterwalden, 
Luzern  and  Zug,  remained  staunchly  and  jealously 
Roman.  They  also  favored  that  foreign  military 
service  which  Zwingli  energetically  opposed.  Causes 
of  friction  between  the  Catholics  and  Protestants 
were  numerous.  In  March,  1529,  on  the  death  of 
its  abbot,  the  Evangelical  majority  of  St,  Gall  con- 
fiscated the  property  of  the  famous  monastery  of 
that  name  with  the  approval  of  Zwingli  and  the  au- 
thorities of  Zurich.  Two  months  later  the  authori- 
ties of  the  canton  of  Schwyz  arrested  Jakob  Kaiser, 
a  Zurich  minister,  for  preaching  within  their  juris- 
diction, and  burned  him  as  a  heretic. 

These  events  greatly  increased  the  tension  be- 
tween the  Roman  and  the  Evangelical  cantons, 
which  had  entered  into  opposing  leagues.  Behind 
the  Catholic  league  stood  the  emperor's  brother, 
Ferdinand,  the  Archduke  of  Austria.  Zwingli  felt 
that  war  was  bound  to  come,  and  that  it  might  best 
come  at  once,  and  Zurich  shared  his  view.  He 
hoped,  moreover,  that,  as  a  result,  the  Swiss  con- 
stitution might  be  changed,  so  that  the  representa- 
tion in  the  Swiss  Diet  might  be  proportionate  to 
population,  thus  radically  altering  the  existing  sys- 


I  78  The  Reformation. 

tern  whereby  the  more  numerous  though  less  pop- 
ulous Catholic  cantons  held  the  majority.  In  June, 
1529,  Zurich  put  four  thousand  men  into  the  field, 
and  Berne  soon  raised  a  defensive  force  of  five 
thousand.  The  CathoHc  cantons  called  out  nearly 
twelve  thousand  troops.  But  it  did  not  come  to  a 
battle.  The  forces  lay  opposite  one  another  near 
Cappel,  on  the  Zug  frontier,  for  several  weeks. 
Neither  wanted  to  begin  the  attack  upon  those  with 
whom  they  had  so  long  been  politically  associated. 
The  Swiss  not  involved  sought  to  mediate  ;  and 
the  result  was  that  peace  was  made  on  June  25, 
1529,  on  terms  very  favorable  to  the  Evangelical 
cause.  Each  canton  was  declared  free  to  choose  its 
religion,  and  equal  legal  rights  were  given  to  Protes- 
tants and  Catholics  in  all  the  relations  of  one  can- 
ton with  another.  The  Catholic  cantons  were  com- 
pelled to  abandon  their  alliance  with  Austria,  and 
to  indemnify  the  Protestants  for  the  costs  of  the 
campaign  as  well  as  the  family  of  Jakob  Kaiser. 

Of  course  such  a  peace  rankled  in  the  memories 
of  the  defeated  party,  and  there  had  been  no  test 
of  strength  in  battle.  The  questions  could  not  be 
regarded  as  settled.  Friction  was  increased  rather 
than  diminished.  Both  sides  sought  foreign  allies 
and  looked  for  the  renewal  of  the  war.  In  1531  it 
came.  Berne  proposed  that  the  five  Roman  cantons 
be  blockaded  and  starved  into  submission  by  the 
Protestants,  and  against  ZwingH's  advice  Zurich  co- 
operated in  the  plan  in  May,  1531.  To  Zwingli  it 
rightly  appeared  that  a  prompt,  open  campaign  was 
the   only    road    to    success.     Zurich    was  divided. 


Death  of  Ziviiigli.  1 79 

Zwingli  was  criticised  and  defeated.  On  July  26 
he  resigned  the  pastorate  he  had  held  since  15 19, 
but  his  resignation  was  not  accepted  by  the  civil 
authorities,  and  he  hoped  for  the  moment  that  they 
would  adopt  his  policy  of  vigorous  action,  but  in 
vain.  Meanwhile  the  starving  forest  cantons,  as 
might  have  been  anticipated,  put  forth  their  utmost 
endeavor,  and  early  in  October  were  in  the  field 
with  eight  thousand  men,  determined  to  break  the 
blockade.  With  a  supineness  explainable  only  by 
their  divisions,  and  in  spite  of  Zwingli's  warnings, 
the  people  of  Zurich  had  made  no  preparation  for 
so  inevitable  a  campaign.  Their  hasty  efforts  could 
gather  but  fifteen  hundred  men  ;  and  on  the  battle- 
field of  Cappel,  on  the  afternoon  of  October  11, 
1 53 1,  this  inferior  force  was  totally  defeated  by  the 
Catholics  with  a  loss  of  more  than  five  hundred,  in- 
cluding many  of  the  most  prominent  inhabitants  of 
Zurich.  Among  the  slain  was  Zwingli  himself.  He 
had  accompanied  the  forces  as  chaplain,  and  had 
done  his  best  to  encourage  them  in  the  unequal 
struggle.  As  the  battle-field  remained  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  victors,  Zwingli's  body  fell  into  their 
power.  It  was  quartered  by  the  executioner  and 
burned.  So  ended  a  man  who  in  clearness  of  in- 
sight and  consequence  of  logic  surpassed  all  the 
reformers  save  Calvin,  and  in  largeness  of  political 
plans  was  the  superior  of  them  all. 

For  Swiss  Protestantism  this  was  a  great  defeat. 
In  the  peace  that  followed,  the  right  of  the  Protes- 
tant cantons  to  maintain  their  own  religion  was, 
indeed,  granted.     In  lands  possessed  by  the  Swiss 


1 80  The   Reformation. 

union  in  the  common  ownership  of  all  the  cantons, 
the  population  was  left  free  to  choose  its  faith. 
But  Zurich  had  to  abandon  all  foreign  alliances  and 
repay  the  indemnities  exacted  of  the  Catholic  can- 
tons in  1529.  Protestantism  made  no  further  ad- 
vances in  German  Switzerland.  The  lines  between 
the  two  confessions  then  drawn  were  permanent. 

To  Luther,  Zwingli's  death  appeared  a  judgment 
of  God  on  his  unbelief,  and  he  was  sorry  that  the 
Roman  cantons  had  not  put  an  end  to  Zwinglianism 
altogether.  Yet,  though  Zwingli's  ambitious  po- 
litical hopes  came  to  naught,  his  reformation  move- 
ment grew  stronger  and  more  pervasive  of  the 
popular  life  in  the  region  where  he  had  labored 
because  he  had  planted  deep,  and  because  the  work 
came  under  the  wise,  patient,  far  less  ambitious  but 
eminently  sane  leadership  of  Heinrich  BuUinger 
(1504-75),  Zwingli's  successor  in  the  Zurich  chief- 
pastorate.  And  the  Swiss  movement  as  a  whole 
was  soon  given  a  world-wide  significance  by  the 
master-hand  of  the  reformer  of  French  Switzerland, 
John  Calvin. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCHES    OF  GERMANY. 

HE  successive  differentiations  of  the  Sax- 
on reformers  from  other  and  from  more 
radical  revolutionary  leaders,  culminat- 
ing in  the  Marburg  colloquy,  were 
rapidly  changing  the  Lutheran  revolt 
from  a  protest  by  a  party  within  the  one  historic 
Church  against  abuses  and  assumptions,  and  from 
an  assertion  of  particular  theories  of  the  way  of  sal- 
vation, of  the  sources  of  authority  and  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Church,  into  a  distinct  ecclesiastical 
body  resting  on  a  definite  and  exclusive  confessional 
basis.  This  growth  of  belief  into  dogma  appears 
in  the  Schwabach  Articles  which  Luther  prepared 
within  a  fortnight  after  the  debate  at  Marburg  (Oc- 
tober i6,  1529),  and  which  were  to  serve  in  part  as 
the  basis  of  a  much  more  significant  creed-statement 
eight  months  later.  After  enumerating  eleven  ar- 
ticles of  faith,  he  therein  declared  that  the  "  Church 
is  formed  by  believers  in  Christ,  who  maintain,  be- 
lieve and  teach  the  aforesaid  articles  and  particu- 
lars. ' '  Yet  Luther  and  Melanchthon  felt  themselves 
far  more  one  with  the  adherents  of  Rome,  however 
strongly  they  denounced  the  papacy  and  the  corrupt 

J8i 


1 82  The  Reformation. 

tions  of  the  Roman  Church,  than  with  Anabaptists 
or  even  with  ZwingHans.  They  had  not  separated 
from  the  Roman  Church,  so  much  as  from  its  abuses. 
Reunion  with  it,  on  conditions  honorable  to  both, 
though  not  probable,  seemed  not  impossible.  It 
was  under  the  dominance  of  these  two  somewhat 
divergent  forces,  the  one  impelling  toward  the  erec- 
tion of  a  standard  of  Lutheran  orthodoxy,  the  other 
toward  the  largest  possible  friendliness  to  Rome 
consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  their  own  prin- 
ciples, that  the  greatest  creed  of  Lutheranism,  the 
Augsburg  Confession  of  1530,  was  prepared. 

From  Italy,  where  he  received  the  imperial  crown 
at  the  hands  of  the  now  friendly  pope,  Charles  V. 
sent  out,  on  January  21,  1530,  the  call  for  a  Reichs- 
tag to  meet  at  Augsburg.  For  the  first  time  in  nine 
years  the  emperor  was  to  be  present  at  an  assembly 
representative  of  Germany.  The  call  thus  issued 
declared  one  main  purpose  of  the  new  Reichstag  to 
be  the  union  of  both  religious  parties  in  Germany  ; 
and,  to  the  surprise  of  many  who  knew  the  positive 
convictions  of  the  emperor,  it  promised  a  kindly 
hearing  to  all  views.  It  was  rightly  looked  upon  by 
the  Protestants  as  a  summons  to  justify  their  posi- 
tions, and  in  preparation  for  the  Reichstag  the  Wit- 
tenberg theologians  met  at  Torgau  in  March,  1530, 
and  sketched  a  defence  of  the  Saxon  changes  in 
worship  and  government,  which  was  destined  to 
serve  as  a  basis  for  the  second  part  of  the  Augs- 
burg Confession.  Elector  Johann  of  Saxony,  ac- 
companied by  the  Wittenberg  divines,  was  early  on 
his  way  to  the  Reichstag.     At  Easter  the  party  was 


The  Augsburg  Confession,  183 

in  Coburg,  where  Luther  was  left  behind,  lest  his 
presence  in  Augsburg  should  seem  to  the  emperor 
too  bold  and  insulting  a  defiance  of  the  dishonored 
Edict  of  Worms.  On  May  2  the  elector,  with  Me- 
lanchthon,  Jonas  and  Agricola,  reached  Augsburg. 
Here  all  awaited  the  coming  of  the  emperor,  who 
arrived  on  June  15th. 

The  original  thought  of  the  Wittenberg  theo- 
logians was  probably  that  of  a  simple  defence  of 
their  modifications  of  Roman  ceremonies  and  rejec- 
tion of  Roman  authority,  but  by  the  time  that  Me- 
lanchthon  reached  Augsburg  it  was  felt  that  some 
more  complete  statement  of  their  position  was  nec- 
essary. Luther's  indefatigable  opponent,  Eck,  had 
drawn  up  and  sent  to  the  emperor,  in  March,  1530, 
a  list  of  four  hundred  and  four  alleged  errors  current 
in  Germany,  in  which  the  opinions  of  Zwinglians, 
Anabaptists,  and  even  more  radical  leaders,  were 
ingeniously  intermingled  with  those  of  the  Luther- 
ans, and  the  differences  between  the  various  types 
of  reformers  were  skilfully  confused.  It  was  plain 
to  the  Saxon  reformers  that  they  must  state  their 
positive  beliefs,  and  that  they  must  not  merely  dis- 
criminate between  themselves  and  the  ancient  her- 
etics or  modern  radicals  with  whom  Eck  had  pur- 
posely confused  them,  but  must  show  their  close 
accord  with  what  they  deemed  the  purer  teaching 
of  the  Roman  Church  itself.  Accordingly,  with  the 
aid  of  Luther's  Schwabach  Articles,  Melanchthon 
now  prepared  the  first,  or  affirmative,  part  of  the 
Augsburg  Confession,  and  submitted  all  that  had 
thus  far  been  drafted  to  a  thorough  revision.     Till 


184  The  Reformation. 

the  hour  of  its  presentation  to  the  Reichstag,  Me- 
lanchthon  continued  to  modify  his  work  and  to 
soften  the  points  of  contrast  between  it  and  the 
beliefs  of  his  Roman  opponents.  Indeed,  so  much 
was  he  a  man  of  peace  and  concession  that  Me- 
lanchthon,  under  the  influence  of  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  emperor  and  his  Roman  advisers, 
was  disposed  to  reduce  the  points  of  debate  to 
three — the  cup  for  the  laity,  permission  of  priestly 
marriage,  and  abandonment  of  private  masses.  This 
would  have  been  to  abandon  what  was  most  vital  to 
the  Lutheran  movement,  and  the  Lutheran  politi- 
cal leaders  held  him  to  the  Confession. 

The  Augsburg  Confession  as  completed  by  Me- 
lanchthon  and  read  before  the  emperor  and  the 
Reichstag,  on  the  afternoon  of  June  25,  1530,  was  a 
document  in  two  parts,  the  first  containing  an  out- 
line of  positive  Christian  belief  in  twenty-one  short 
articles  ;  the  second,  a  repudiation  of  certain  Ro- 
man practices  and  beliefs,  such  as  the  denial  of  the 
cup  to  the  laity,  priestly  celibacy,  the  sacrificial 
theory  of  the  mass,  the  Roman  uses  of  confession, 
fasts,  penances  and  monastic  vows,  and  the  power 
Qver  churchly  and  civil  affairs  assumed  by  the  Ro- 
man bishops  and  clergy.  True  to  its  irenic  purpose, 
the  sole  authority  of  the  Scripture  was  nowhere  ex- 
pressly afifirmed  nor  was  the  primacy  of  the  pope 
distinctly  denied.  The  article  on  the  Supper  was  so 
framed  as  not  to  exclude  transubstantiation  ;  and 
Melanchthon  afifirmed,  in  reply  to  criticisms,  that  in 
the  Lutheran  doctrines  as  a  whole  "there  is  nothing 
which  is  discrepant  with  the  Scriptures,  or  with  the 


The  Augshcrg  Confession.  185 

Church  Catholic,  or  even  with  the  Roman  Church, 
so  far  as  that  Church  is  known  from  the  writings  of 
the  fathers."  The  same  desire  to  make  the  breach 
with  the  Roman  Church  as  slight  as  possible  ap- 
pears in  the  care  with  which  the  Confession  rejects 
ancient  heresies  and  the  more  radical  movements  of 
its  own  day.  Yet  no  attentive  reader  can  be  in  any 
doubt  as  to  the  Evangelical  atmosphere  of  the  Con- 
fession. Justification  by  faith  is  clearly,  though  un-a 
aggressively,  asserted,  and  the  Church  is  defined  in^ 
the  true  spirit  of  Protestantism  as  "the  assembly  of 
all  believers,  in  which  the  Gospel  is  purely  preached 
and  the  sacraments  administered  according  to  the 
Gospel."  In  spite  of  its  omissions  and  its  reten- 
tions, this  earliest  of  modern  creeds  of  wide  accept- 
ance is  one  which  the  Lutheran  churches  of  to-day 
may  well  be  proud  to  own.  It  is  broad,  catholic, 
and  essentially  Evangelical. 

The  Confession  thus  prepared  by  Melanchthon, 
on  the  basis  of  earlier  work  by  Luther  and  other 
Wittenberg  theologians,  was  originally  designed 
to  be  presented  to  the  Reichstag  by  electoral 
Saxony  alone.  Other  Protestant  governments  had 
begun  or  completed  the  preparation  of  statements 
of  belief  and  defences  of  their  innovations.  But 
the  desirability  of  unity  was  evident,  and  when  the 
Confession  was  laid  before  the  Reichstag  it  bore  the 
signatures  not  only  of  the  Saxon  elector,  but  of 
Philip  of  Hesse,  Ernst,  Johann  Friedrich  and 
Franz  of  Brunswick-Liineburg,  Wolfgang  of  Anhalt, 
Georg  of  Anspach,  and  of  the  cities  Nuremberg  and 
Reutlingen.     Of   these,    the   most   significant   was 


1 86  The   Reformation. 

that  of  the  landgrave  of  Hesse,  whose  sympathies 
continued  to  be  with  Zwingli   on  the  question  of 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper,  but  whose  political 
instincts  led  him  to  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
the  Saxon  reformers.     Zwingli  himself  sent  a  per- 
sonal expression  of  his  belief  to  the  emperor ;  and 
the  four  South-German   cities   of   Zwinglian  sym- 
pathies,   Strassburg,    Constance,    Memmingen   and 
Lindau,  denied  by  the  Lutherans  the  right  to  sign 
the  Augsburg  Confession    unless   they  would   un- 
reservedly accept  its  definition  of  the  Supper,  pre- 
sented a  confession,  chiefly  from  the  pen  of  Bucer, 
to  the  emperor  on  the  eleventh  of  July.     This  Con- 
fessio  Tctrapolitana  is  chiefly  interesting  by  reason 
of  its  clear  assertion  of  Scripture  as  the  sole  author- 
ity, and  its  attempt  to  steer  an  intermediate  course 
between    Luther   and   Zwingli    on    the   nature    of 
Christ's  presence,   presenting  a  view  akin  to  that 
later    developed    by    Calvin.       Neither    of    these 
Zwinglian  confessions,  however,  obtained  the  hear- 
ing or  the  respect  accorded  to  that  of  the  Lutherans. 
To   the  Augsburg  Confession  a  reply  was  pre- 
pared, at  the  instance  of  the  emperor,  by  a  con 
siderable  number  of  Roman  theologians  under  the 
leadership  of  the  papal  legate,  Lorenzo  Campegi. 
This  Confutation  as  originally  drafted,  chiefly  by 
Eck,  seemed  to  the  emperor  and  the  Catholic  princes 
too  offensive,  and  on  their  insistence  it  was  several 
times  modified  in  tone,  till  it  was  at  last  oflficially 
accepted  by  the  emperor  and  read  to  the  Reichstag 
on  August  3,  as  a  complete  answer  to  the  Protes- 
tants.    But  the  Protestant  princes  persisted  in  their 


The  Aiigsbttrg  Confessio7t.  187 

adherence  to  the  Augsburg  Confession,  and  there- 
fore negotiations  were  opened  looking  toward  a 
compromise.  Committees  representative  of  both 
parties  met,  led  respectively  by  Eck  and  Melanch- 
thon.  A  considerable  degree  of  agreement  was  at- 
tained, chiefly  through  Melanchthon's  willingness  to 
surrender  much  that  had  seemed  vital  for  the  sake 
of  peace  ;  but  the  Protestant  princes  stood  firmer 
than  he,  and  in  the  end  all  compromise  was  aban- 
doned. Though  some  of  the  Roman  party  which 
held  the  majority  at  Augsburg  counselled  the  im- 
mediate repression  of  the  Protestants,  the  military 
situation  of  the  empire,  threatened  by  Turkish 
attack,  inclined  Charles  V.  and  the  greater  part  of 
his  supporters  to  cautious  action.  In  September 
the  decision  came.  The  emperor  promised  to  dov 
his  best  to  bring  about  a  general  council  by  which  V 
all  religious  questions  should  receive  a  final  settle- 
ment, but  the  Lutherans,  having  been  refuted, 
must  permit  Catholic  services  in  their  lands,  make 
no  further  alterations  in  worship,  and  assist  the 
emperor  to  put  down  Anabaptists  and  Zwinglians. 
On  these  terms  they  might  have  till  April  15,  1531, 
to  prepare  for  a  complete  conformity  to  the  em- 
peror's wishes.  These  terms  the  Lutherans  re- 
fused, and  on  September  22,  1530,  they  handed  to 
the  emperor  the  first  draft  of  Melanchthon's  Apology 
for  the  Augsburg  Confession,  with  the  declaration 
that  it  had  never  been  refuted.  This  hastily  written 
defence  of  the  Confession  Melanchthon  leisurely 
rewrote  during  the  following  winter,  and  as  put 
forth  in  April,    1531,  it  was  a  brilliant  and  learned 


The  Reformation. 


vindication  of  Protestant  doctrines.  Always  re- 
garded as  an  indispensable  commentary  on  the 
Augsburg  Confession,  it  almost  immediately  came 
to  share  with  that  declaration  the  authority  of  a 
creed  in  the  Lutheran  churches. 

The  most  significant  result  of  the  Augsburg 
Reichstag  was  that  it  had  manifested  the  Lutherans 
I  as  a  compact  party,  and  had  given  to  that  party  a 
definite  creed-basis.  Though  not  written  as  a  test 
of  unity  in  belief,  the  Augsburg  Confession  almost 
immediately  assumed  that  symbolic  authority.  It 
was  a  great  convenience  to  have  a  visible  uniting 
bond  by  which  Lutherans  could  be  distinguished 
on  the  one  hand  from  the  adherents  of  the  older 
communion,  and  on  the  other  from  the  more  radical 
reformers.  Yet,  for  more  than  a  decade,  it  was 
conformity  to  the  beliefs,  rather  than  to  the  letter, 
of  the  Confession  that  was  sought ;  and  Melanch- 
thon  saw  no  impropriety  in  modifying  the  Confes- 
sion and  its  associated  Apology  in  successive 
editions  as  his  theology  developed.  These  modifi- 
cations were  later  to  be  a  source  of  bitter  contro- 
versy within  the  Lutheran  body  itself. 

The  Augsburg  decision  could  be  construed  in  no 
other  sense  than  as  an  ultimate  threat  of  war,  and 
to  meet  the  situation  the  Protestant  princes  assem- 
bled at  Schmalkalden  in  Thuringia  in  December, 
1530,  and  in  February  and  March,  1531,  formed  a 
league  known  as  that  of  Schmalkalden,  promising 
mutual  defence  for  the  next  six  years.  In  this 
league  there  united  not  only  electoral  Saxony, 
Hesse,    Brunswick-Liineburg,   Anhalt,   and    Mans- 


League  of  Schmalkalde7t.  189 

feld,  but  the  cities  of  Strassburg,  Constance,  Ulm, 
Memmingen,  Lindau,  Reutlingen,  Biberach,  Isny, 
Liibeck,  Magdeburg  and  Bremen,  The  most  sig- 
nificant feature  of  this  list  is  that  it  contains  the 
names  of  those  great  south  German  cities  with 
which  the  Lutherans  had  refused  federation  in  1529. 
That  they  were  now  joined  was  due  in  part  to  the 
increasing  feeling  of  the  Lutherans  that  resistance 
to  the  emperor  was  a  right,  in  part  to  the  unsettled 
political  situation  of  Zurich  and  the  maiming  of 
Zwingli's  plans,  but  chiefly  to  the  skilful  negotia- 
tions and  irenic  temper  of  Bucer.  With  the  defeat 
of  Cappel  and  the  death  of  Zwingli  on  October  11, 
1531,  the  Swiss  connection  lost  its  political  value, 
and  the  south  German  cities  turned  more  than 
ever  to  the  northern  states  as  necessary  allies  if 
they  were  themselves  to  stand.  Once  formed,  the 
Schmalkaldic  League  rapidly  united  German  Protes- 
tantism. In  December,  1531,  Johann  of  Saxony 
and  Philip  of  Hesse  were  chosen  its  leaders.  Fresh 
accessions  came  to  it,  and  a  number  of  German 
princes,  notably  those  of  Bavaria,  though  strongly 
Roman  in  religious  sympathies,  entered  into  friend- 
ly relations  to  the  league  because  of  opposition  to 
the  emperor's  efforts  for  the  dynastic  advancement 
of  the  house  of  Austria,  of  which  he  was  the  head. 
Germany  was  divided  politically  no  less  than  relig- 
iously, and  the  15th  of  April,  1531,  passed  without 
any  action  against  the  Protestants. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  Schmalkaldic  League,  it  would 
have  gone  hard  with  the  Evangelical  party  had 
Charles  V.  been  able  to  exert  his  full  strength  ;  but, 


iQO  The  Reformation. 

by  the  year  1532,  his  hands  were  once  more  tied  by 
the  course  of  the  larger  politics  of  Europe.  Be- 
tween 1 52 1  and  1529,  the  emperor's  principal  con- 
test had  been  with  France  for  the  control  of  Italy. 
Now,  though  danger  from  France  was  not  wholly 
eliminated,  the  chief  anxiety  was  from  the  attacks 
of  the  Turks  on  the  eastern  borders  of  the  empire. 
The  Turkish  empire,  under  Suleiman  II.  (1520- 
66),  had  conquered  Belgrade  and  Rhodes  in  1521 
and  1522,  had  defeated  the  Hungarians  in  the  disas- 
trous battle  of  Mohacs  in  1526,  and  had  been  beaten 
back  from  the  walls  of  Vienna  itself  with  difificulty 
after  a  memorable  siege  in  1529,  during  the  very 
days  when  Luther  and  Zwingli  were  returning  home- 
ward from  the  just  ended  colloquy  at  Marburg. 
Under  the  terrifying  impress  of  these  events,  the 
Reichstag  met  at  Augsburg  in  1530,  and  to  the 
danger  on  the  eastern  border  was  due  in  some 
measure  the  patient  hearing  there  accorded  the 
Protestants.  Yet  1530  and  1531  passed  without 
Turkish  attack  and  with  apparently  increasing  pros- 
pect that  a  peace  with  the  sultan  would  be  effected. 
Could  that  be  brought  about,  Charles  would  be  free 
to  attack  the  Protestants.  But,  in  the  spring  of 
1532,  the  news  came  that  Suleiman  was  determined 
on  a  campaign  that  should  accomplish  the  conquest 
of  Vienna  which  he  had  vainly  attempted  in  1529, 
and  for  this  end  the  sultan  had  raised  an  army  of 
most  portentous  proportions.  A  united  Germany 
was  an  immediate  political  necessity,  the  more  so 
that  France  seemed  disposed  to  take  advantage  of 
the  situation  ;    and,  accordingly,  the  reluctant  em- 


Politics  Fo7'ce  a    Triuc,  191 

peror  began  negotiations  with  the  Protestants, 
which  resulted  at  Nuremberg  on  July  23,  1532,  in  a 
religious  truce,  by  which  the  Evangelical  states  \ 
were  granted  the  free  exercise  of  their  worship  till 
a  general  council  should  meet.  For  the  time  being 
the  position  of  the  Protestants  was  assured.  Thus 
strengthened  by  the  suspension  of  internal  quarrels, 
the  empire  successfully  repelled  the  Turkish  attack, 
in  a  campaign  without  battles  of  magnitude,  and 
the  danger  to  the  eastern  border  was  averted. 

The  most  significant  event  of  the  year  was  not 
this  frustration  of  Suleiman's  plans,  but  the  tolera- 
tion of  Protestantism  which  Turkish  advance  had 
compelled.  The  Protestants,  though  having  no 
permanent  legal  status,  had  won  a  temporary  recog- 
nition which  made  them  stronger  than  ever ;  and 
their  new  position  was  given  assurance  of  consider- 
able permanency  because  the  council  that  the  em- 
peror desired  the  pope  heartily  opposed  and  would 
grant  only  on  conditions  that  precluded  Protestant 
acceptance,  and  because  Charles  V.  himself  left 
Germany  for  Italy  and  Spain  in  the  autumn  of  1532, 
and  was  not  able  to  return  to  that  divided  land  till 
1 541.  Great  undertakings,  such  as  his  brilliant  ex- 
pedition against  Tunis  in  1535,  and  a  renewed  war 
with  France  from  1536  to  1538,  kept  the  emperor 
busied  elsewhere. 

The  Nuremberg  Truce  of  1532  had  promised 
peace  only  to  those  who  were  already  adherents  of 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  but  under  such  favoring 
circumstances,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Schmal- 
kaldic  League  grew  in  influence  and  received  con- 


192  The   Reformation. 

siderable  accessions.  The  most  important  of  these 
Avas  that  of  Wiirtemberg.  Thence  the  tyrannical 
duke  Ulrich  had  been  driven  forth  by  the  Swabian 
League  in  15 19,  and  the  government  of  the  land 
had  come  into  the  hands  of  the  emperor's  brother, 
Ferdinand. 

Years  had  weakened  the  hostility  of  Ulrich's  sub- 
jects toward  their  former  ruler,  and  adversity  had 
probably  improved  his  character ;  his  son,  Chris- 
topher, was  highly  popular,  while  neighboring 
princes.  Catholic  and  Protestant,  looked  with  anxiety 
on  the  increase  of  the  power  of  the  Austrian  house 
which  the  retention  of  Wiirtemberg  by  Ferdinand 
signified.  During  his  long  exile  spent  at  the  court 
of  Philip  of  Hesse,  Ulrich  had  embraced  Protestant- 
ism. Philip  now,  in  the  spring  of  1534,  and  with 
the  aid  of  French  money,  attacked  Ferdinand's 
troops,  and  forced  a  treaty  at  Kadan  on  June  29, 
by  which  Ulrich  was  restored  to  his  former  dukedom 
and  authorized  to  introduce  Protestant  changes  into 
Wiirtemberg.  The  Evangelical  movement  speedily 
took  possession  of  that  land  and  of  the  neighboring 
Baden.  The  year  of  this  great  addition  to  the 
Protestant  territories  of  Germany  saw  the  victory  of 
the  Evangelical  party  in  the  city  of  Hanover  and 
the  territory  of  Pomerania  ;  in  1535  Protestantism 
gained  the  upper  hand  in  Augsburg  and  in  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main  ;  and  in  1536  the  Protestant  cities 
and  states  of  south  Germany  were  knit  to  the 
Lutherans  of  the  north  by  the  acceptance  of  a 
moderate  Lutheran  declaration  on  the  nature  of 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper — the  Wittenberg 


Protestant   Growth.  193 

Concord.  Though  thus  moving  doctrinally  in  a 
direction  away  from  ZwingH,  in  forms  of  worship 
these  South-German  churches  inclined  to  the  sim- 
plicity of  Switzerland.  The  same  year,  1536,  the 
Schmalkaldic  League  was  renewed  for  ten  years, 
and  extended  to  all  who  had  thus  far  embraced 
Protestantism  and  would  sign  the  Augsburg  Con- 
fession. 

By  1536  German  Protestantism  had  won  a  strong  | 
position  ;  but  it  was  not  yet  secure.  Not  only  had 
it  acquired  no  permanent  legal  rights,  there  had 
been  no  real  test  of  strength  between  it  and  its 
Roman  opponents.  As  time  passed,  new  dangers 
arose.  The  desire  of  Charles  V.  that  a  reformatory 
general  council  after  the  model  of  those  of  the 
fifteenth  century  should  be  held  was  earnest,  but 
Pope  Clement  VII.  had  steadily  opposed.  In  1534, 
however,  Clement  was  succeeded  by  a  man  more 
thoroughly  alive  than  he  to  the  necessity  of  churchly 
reform,  Alexander  Farnese,  who  took  the  title  of 
Paul  III.  (pope  1534-49).  French  though  he  was 
in  political  sympathy,  Paul  so  far  yielded  to  the 
demands  of  Charles  V.  that  in  June,  1536,  he  called 
the  desired  council  to  meet  in  Mantua  in  May  of 
the  following  year.  The  call  was  a  serious  em- 
barrassment to  the  Protestants.  They  had  early 
appealed  to  a  council.  But  this  council  was  sum- 
moned by  the  pope,  to  meet  in  an  Italian  city  ;  and 
the  pope  stated,  not  indeed  in  the  call  itself,  but  in 
a  bull  of  the  time,  that  its  purpose  was  to  root  out 
the  pestilential  Lutheran  heresy.  The  Protestants 
in  such  an  assembly  would  find  themselves  at  best  a 


194  T^i^  Refo7^mation. 

feeble  minority,  powerless  to  control  decisions  by 
which,  if  participants,  they  would  nevertheless  be 
bound.  No  wonder  that  the  representatives  of  the 
League  which  met  in  Schmalkalden  in  February, 
1537,  declared  such  a  council  wholly  unsatisfactory 
and  refused  a  share  in  it.  Yet,  curiously  enough, 
this  decision  Avas  strongly  against  the  judgment  of 
Luther,  who  felt  that  the  pope's  call  should  have 
been  accepted,  that  truth,  as  he  understood  it, 
might  be  presented  and  have  its  weight  with  the 
council. 

In  preparation  for  this  meeting  at  Schmalkalden, 
Luther  drew  up  a  statement  of  faith,  couched  in 
very  vigorous  and  denunciatory  language,  setting 
forth  those  general  principles  on  which  Lutherans 
and  Romanists  were  agreed,  the  points  of  difference 
of  vital  importance  wherein  no  union  could  be 
hoped  for,  and  those  topics  which,  though  not 
doubtful  to  him,  might  yet  be  discussed  with  some 
hope  of  agreement  between  learned  and  sensible  ad- 
herents of  the  papacy  and  their  opponents.  This 
statement,  after  receiving  the  signatures  of  most 
of  the  Wittenberg  theologians,  was  presented  to 
the  Saxon  elector,  Johann  Friedrich  (1532-47),  in 
January,  1537.  Though  adopted  by  no  ofificial 
body,  theological  or  political,  and  really  the  private 
expression  of  Luther  and  such  as  chose  to  append 
their  signatures,  this  creed  has  passed  into  the 
symbolic  standards  of  Lutheranism  as  the  "Schmal- 
kaldic  Articles. "  Appended  to  it,  as  usually  pub- 
lished, is  a  brief  "  Treatise  "  by  Melanchthon  "  on 
the   Power  and  Primacy  of  the  Pope,"  that  was 


The  Schnialkaldic  Articles.  195 

formally  approved   by   the    representatives  of   the 
League  and  the  theologians  assembled  at  Schmal- 
kalden  on  this  occasion.      It  is  significant  not  only 
as  expressing  the  strongly  anti-papal  spirit  of  the 
Protestants,  but  as  revealing  their  increasing  con-| 
viction  that  no  reconciliation  with  the  old  Church 
was    possible.      It    will    be    remembered    that    the;! 
Augsburg   Confession    had    contained    no    expressi 
denial  of  the  authority  of  the  pope. 

Among  those  present  at  Schmalkalden  when  the 
Protestants  thus  rejected  papal  overtures  was  the  im- 
perial Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  Matthias  Held,  who  had 
presented  the  emperor's  summons  to  the  Protestants 
to  be  well  represented  at  the  council.  Held  now 
undertook  to  unite  the  princes  who  adhered  to  the 
older  communion  into  a  league  to  offset  that  of 
Schmalkalden  ;  and  though  the  task  presented 
many  difficulties,  owing  to  mutual  jealousies,  he 
brought  it  about  that  on  June  10,  1538,  a  confedera- 
tion was  formed  at  Nuremberg  which,  though  far 
from  including  all  the  Roman  sympathizers  in  Ger- 
many, joined  the  emperor,  his  brother  Ferdinand, 
Bavaria,  ducal  Saxony,  the  archbishops  of  Mainz 
and  of  Salzburg,  and  dukes  Erich  and  Heinrich  of 
Brunswick,  in  a  union  to  resist  Protestant  advance. 
Yet,  though  the  existence  of  this  counter-league 
gave  a  warlike  aspect  to  the  internal  politics  of 
Germany,  and  though  Charles  V.  brought  the  war 
with  France  to  an  end  by  the  Truce  of  Nice  con- 
temporaneously with  the  formation  of  the  Catholic 
League,  the  political  situation,  by  reason  of  the 
threatening  growth  of  Turkish  aggression,  especially 


196  The  Reformatiofi. 

in  the  Mediterranean,  counselled  peace,  as  in  1532. 
The  general  council,  called  with  such  difficulty,  and 
on  which  the  emperor  had  based  so  great  expecta- 
tions, had  not  yet  met  by  reason  of  the  wars.  It 
was  not  to  assemble  effectively  till  1545.  Protes- 
tantism was  making  rapid  territorial  advance.  Ducal 
Saxony,  where  Duke  Georg  (1500-39)  had  long 
strenuously  upheld  the  Roman  cause,  came,  at  his 
death  on  April  17,  1539,  under  the  rule  of  the 
Protestant  Duke  Heinrich  (1539-41).  Later  in  the 
same  year,Brandenburg, under  Joachim  11.(1535-71), 
ranged  itself  on  the  Evangelical  side.  A  far  less 
shrewd  politician  than  Charles  V.  could  have  per- 
ceived that  the  times  were  unpropitious  for  an 
attempt  to  put  down  Protestantism  by  force.  He 
still  hoped  that  a  tolerable  basis  of  compromise 
between  the  two  parties  could  be  found.  And  so  it 
came  about,  after  much  negotiation,  that  on  April 
19,  1539,  an  agreement  was  reached  at  Frankfort,  by 
which  all  hostile  action  and  legal  processes  between 
the  Protestants  and  the  Catholics  should  be  sus- 
pended for  six  months.  A  much  more  important 
provision  of  this  treaty  was  that  friendly  discussion 
looking  toward  "  Christian  union"  should  be  held 
between  representatives  of  both  parties. 

How  far  this  Frankfort  Suspension  was  a  device 
on  the  part  of  the  emperor  to  gain  time,  or  how  far 
he  really  believed  an  adjustment  of  the  points  at 
issue  possible  as  a  result  of  friendly  debate,  is  diffi- 
cult to  say.  Probably  he  had  more  than  one  plan 
in  mind  ;  and  as  those  involving  force  were  beyond 
his  present  power,  he  would   try  a  path  of  peace. 


Union  Efforts.  197 

Yet  a  friendly  adjustment  of  the  differences  did  not 
then  seem  so  impossible  as  it  now  appears  in  the 
light  of  history.  Italy  and  southern  Germany  were^ 
showing  counter-reformations  of  the  Spanish  type 
that  were  very  thorough,  and  the  Lutheran  cause 
was  becoming  a  great  political  interest  as  well  as  a 
theologic  movement.  The  two  tendencies  might  be 
joined  in  a  reunited  Church.  After  an  attempted 
discussion  at  Hagenau,  in  June,  1540,  had  proved 
idle  owing  to  disagreement  as  to  the  way  in  which  it 
should  be  conducted,  twenty-two  disputants,  eleven 
from  each  party,  were  brought  together  under  the 
presidency  of  the  emperor's  representative,  the  elder 
Granvella,  at  Worms,  in  November  following.  Here 
Melanchthon  and  Calvin  debated  side  by  side  and 
laid  the  foundations  for  a  warm  personal  friendship. 
With  them  stood  Bucer,  Cruciger  and  Brenz.  For 
the  Roman  party,  Eck  was  the  chief  debater,  sup- 
ported by  the  polemic  Johann  Cochlaeus  of  Breslau, 
long  the  chief  literary  assistant  of  Duke  Georg  of 
Saxony  in  his  resistance  to  Luther,  and  by  the  con- 
ciliatory Johann  Gropper  of  Cologne.  But,  by  Jan- 
uary, 1 541,  the  papal  nuncio.  Bishop  Morone  of 
Modena,  fearful  lest  the  debate  work  to  the  damage 
of  the  Roman  cause,  had  raised  such  difificulties 
that,  at  the  command  of  the  emperor,  the  discus- 
sion was  adjourned  to  the  meeting  of  the  Reichs- 
tag at  Regensburg,  which  opened  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Charles  V.  himself  in  the  following  April. 
Eager  to  secure  a  union,  the  emperor  designated 
as  disputants  for  the  Protestants  Melanchthon, 
Bucer  and  Johann  Pistorius,  all  men  of  moderate 


198  The   Reformation. 

views  ;  and  joined  with  Eck  on  the  Roman  side  two 
conciliatory  associates,  Johann  Gropper,  who  had 
appeared  at  Worms,  and  Julius  Pflug  of  Naum- 
burg.  Even  more  promising  was  the  appointment, 
at  the  emperor's  suggestion,  as  nuncio,  by  Pope 
Paul  III.,  of  the  most  conciliatory  representative  of 
the  Italian  counter-Reformation,  Cardinal  Gasparo 
Contarini  (1483-1542).  From  April  27,  1541,  to 
May  22,  the  debate  continued.  But  though  agree- 
ment was  reached  on  many  points,  and  Contarini 
was  willing  to  allow  the  cup  to  the  laity,  the  mar- 
riage of  priests,  and  even  the  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith  alone  with  some  modification,  no 
agreement  could  be  reached  regarding  the  Church  or 
the  Lord's  Supper.  The  emperor's  plan  had  totally 
failed  to  bring  about  the  desired  reconciliation. 
Though  the  Nuremberg  Truce  of  1532  was  extended 
by  the  Reichstag  to  all  present  adherents  of  the 
Augsburg  Confession,  and  a  special  declaration  by 
Charles  V.  gave  certain  other  concessions  to  the 
Protestants,  the  failure  of  these  union  attempts  was 
the  one  great  religious  event  of  the  year  1541.  It 
marked  the  separation  of  the  churches.  Heretofore 
all  had  been  to  a  large  extent  tentative.  Hence- 
forth they  go  separate  ways.  The  effect  on  the 
papal  policy  was  at  once  apparent.  A  bull  was  is- 
sued calling  a  general  council  to  meet  at  Trent  in 
May,  1542,  to  formulate  Catholic  doctrine — a  coun- 
cil, however,  that  did  not  begin  its  work  effectively 
till  December,  1545.  By  a  second  bull,  of  July, 
1542,  the  Inquisition  was  reorganized  at  Rome,  as 
world-wide  in  its  scope,  and  placed  under  the  con- 


The  Efforts  Fail.  199 

trol  of  a  cardinal  familiar  with  Spanish  methods  and 
himself  the  friend  of  the  leaders  in  the  Spanish 
Reformation,  Giovanni  Pietro  Caraffa  (1476-15  59), 
the  later  Pope  Paul  IV. 

Baffled  thus  in  his  attempt  to  effect  a  reconcilia- 
tion of  Protestants  and  Catholics  by  discussion, 
Charles  V.  now  turned  to  a  more  complicated  plan 
involving  far-reaching  and  most  difficult  political 
combinations.  In  brief,  it  was  to  divide  the  Prot- 
estants politically,  to  prevent  the  interference  of 
France,  to  secure  a  general  council  which  should 
effect  those  reforms  in  ecclesiastical  administration 
which  were  generally  recognized  as  desirable,  and 
that  should  remain  in  session  ready  to  make  such 
minor  doctrinal  concessions  as  should  be  needful  to 
reunite  the  Protestants  to  the  Roman  Church  w^hen 
the  imperial  forces  should  have  overcome  their  di- 
vided ranks.  In  1541,  reconcihation  with  France 
seemed  out  of  the  question,  but  a  curious  event  of 
far-reaching  consequence  had  made  possible  the 
division  in  the  Protestant  party  which  the  emperor 
desired. 

Philip  of  Hesse  (1509-67),  the  boldest  and  politi- 
cally the  most  energetic  and  far-sighted  member  of 
the  Schmalkaldic  League,  had  early  married  Chris- 
tine, a  daughter  of  Duke  Georg  of  Saxony.  She 
had  borne  him  seven  children.  But,  like  many 
princes  of  the  Reformation  age,  Philip  had  little 
self-control,  and  fell  into  repeated  breaches  of  the 
seventh  commandment.  A  somewhat  sensitive  con- 
science led  him  to  absent  himself  for  years  from  the 
Supper  on  this  account.     But  the  repudiation  of  the 


200  The  Reformation. 

Roman  ecclesiastical  law  and  the  weight  laid  upon 
the  Olo  Testament  by  the  new  exaltation  of  the  au- 
thority of  Scripture  led  to  some  unsettling  of  men's 
minds.  To  the  troubled  landgrave  it  seemed  as  if 
bigamy  would  be  a  Biblically-permitted  escape 
from  his  more  scandalous  lapses,  and  he  was  en- 
couraged in  the  belief  by  a  declaration  of  Luther  in 
the  De  Captivitate  Babylonica  that  bigamy  was  more 
tolerable  than  divorce ;  and  by  a  sermon  upon 
Abraham,  Sarah  and  Hagar,  printed  seven  years 
later,  in  which  Luther  affirmed  that  though  he  could 
not  forbid  bigamy  in  his  own  time,  he  would  not 
counsel  it.  So  it  came  about  that,  after  having 
long  entertained  the  thought  of  a  possible  second 
marriage,  Philip  reached  the  determination,  in  1539, 
to  take  as  a  second  wife  Margaretha  von  der  Saal, 
the  young  daughter  of  a  lady  of  his  sister's  little 
court  at  Rochlitz.  For  this  step  he  won  the  con- 
sent of  Bucer,  who  feared  that  if  thwarted  he  would 
turn  to  the  emperor  or  even  to  the  pope  ;  and  he 
sent  Bucer  as  his  messenger,  in  December,  1539,  ^o 
obtain  if  possible  the  approval  of  Luther  and  Me- 
Janchthon.  In  their  reply,  the  Wittenberg  reform- 
ers declared  that  bigamy  was  in  no  sense  a  universal 
right,  at  most  it  was  an  exceptional  dispensation 
from  the  general  law.  They  urged  Philip  in  plain- 
spoken  language  to  amend  his  vicious  life  ;  but  they 
consented,  if  that  amendment  were  impossible,  that 
the  landgrave  should  take  another  wife,  giving  to 
her,  apparently,  the  public  status  essentially  of  a 
concubine,  and  by  all  means  keeping  the  marriage 
a  secret,  lest   scandal   arise.     It   was  bad    advice, 


Philip's  Bigamy.  201 

though  doubtless  the  reformers  were  moved  to  con- 
sent to  the  course  that  Philip  proposed  as  a  less  evil 
than  the  unregulated  excesses  which  Philip  declared 
himself  otherwise  unable  to  resist.  Nor  were  mat- 
ters made  better  when  the  marriage  had  been  per- 
formed, on  March  4,  1540,  by  one  of  Philip's  court 
preachers  in  the  presence  of  Melanchthon  and 
Bucer.  Of  course  the  facts  soon  became  public,  and 
of  course  the  Saxon  relatives  of  the  landgrave's  first 
wife  were  angry,  though  she  had  given  her  consent. 
The  seed  of  discord  was  sown  in  the  Protestant 
ranks.  Though  Luther  advised  that  the  landgrave 
should  conceal  the  facts,  and  Melanchthon  fell  into 
a  sickness  through  chagrin  that  carried  him  almost  to 
the  gates  of  death,  to  be  rescued,  it  was  believed, 
by  Luther's  prayers,  the  mischief  was  done.  And, 
worst  of  all,  many  who  had  been  favorable  to  the 
Lutheran  doctrines  now  queried  their  moral  quality. 
No  less  important  a  personage  than  the  emperor's 
brother,  Ferdinand,  afterward  declared  that  he  had 
been  turned  from  a  rapidly  growing  sympathy  with 
the  Protestant  position  by  this  untoward  event.  It 
was  the  hardest  blow  that  Protestantism  had  yet 
received.  Very  characteristic,  however,  was  the  use 
which  that  shrewdest  of  politicians  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  Charles  V.,  made  of  the  disfavor  with 
which  Philip  found  himself  regarded.  He  attempted 
no  punishment  of  the  landgrave,  but  he  took  ad- 
vantage of  Philip's  isolated  position  to  force  a 
treaty,  in  June,  1541,  by  which  Philip  promised 
that  neither  he  nor  the  Schmalkaldic  League,  if 
he  could  prevent  it,  should  invoke  the  aid  of  the 


202  The  Reformation, 

French  or  of  other  foreigners  against  the  emperor. 
The  Lutheran  cause  was  thus  robbed  of  the  unity 
and  freedom  of  action  that  it  had  heretofore  en- 
joyed and  deprived  of  Philip's  aggressive  leadership. 
Charles  V.  would  undoubtedly  have  gladly  at- 
tacked the  Protestants  at  once.  But  if  he  had 
made  a  decided  tactical  gain  through  Philip's  error, 
the  outward  politics  of  the  empire  were  never  more 
discouraging  than  in  1 541  and  1 542.  A  fresh  invasion 
of  the  Turks  under  Suleiman,  in  1541,  so  rendered 
them  the  masters  of  Hungary  that  the  sultan  now 
gave  it  the  government  of  a  Turkish  province.  An 
expedition  led  against  Algiers  by  Charles  V.  in 
person  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  ended  in  disaster. 
The  war  with  France  broke  forth  anew  in  July, 
1542.  Turkey  and  France  were  in  alliance.  Never 
was  the  emperor  in  a  more  difficult  position.  Prot- 
estant help  was  a  military  necessity.  At  the 
Reichstag  of  Speier,  in  1542,  peace  was  promised  to 
the  Protestants  for  five  years.  Two  years  later,  at 
a  Reichstag  held  in  the  same  city,  the  emperor  de- 
clared it  to  be  his  intention  to  submit  to  the  next 
Reichstag  a  plan  of  a  *"  Christian  reformation," 
and,  borrowing  the  favorite  phrase  of  the  Protes- 
tants, he  affirmed  it  to  be  his  desire  that  the  quesr 
tions  at  issue  be  laid  before  a  "  common,  free. 
Christian  council."  If  such  a  council  could  not  be 
obtained,  then,  declared  the  emperor,  a  Reichstag 
should  be  called  within  the  next  few  months,  to 
which  the  states  should  present  their  plans  for 
reform  that  a  common  agreement  might  be  reached. 
The  Protestants  were  delighted.    They  believed  that 


The  Empero7'  s  Plans.  203 

the  emperor  might  even  be  won  for  their  cause,  the 
more  because  the  pope  was  supporting  the  French. 
They  voted  him  the  troops  that  he  desired. 

Thus  laboriously  prepared,  and  aided  by  an  alli- 
ance with  Henry  VIII.  of  England,  the  great 
attack  on  France  began  in  June,  1544.  The  em- 
peror pushed  rapidly  forward.  In  September  he 
was  within  two  days'  march  of  Paris.  No  German 
army  had  been  so  near  the  French  capital  for  more 
than  five  hundred  years.  All  looked  for  a  decisive 
battle.  But,  instead,  on  September  14,  peace  was 
made,  on  terms  which  seemed  to  give  the  emperor 
few  of  the  advantages  that  apparently  lay  in  his 
grasp.  Its  value  was  in  secret  articles  which  pledged 
Francis  not  to  aid  the  Protestants.  Furthermore, 
both  sovereigns  looked  with  favor  on  a  general 
council,  not  as  the  Protestants  desired  it  to  be,  but 
after  the  mediaeval  model,  and  in  November,  1544, 
under  the  influence  of  this  agreement,  Pope  Paul 
III.  once  more  issued  a  bull  summoning  such  a 
body  to  assemble  at  Trent.  There  it  was  at  last  to 
meet  in  December,  1545. 

The  emperor's  hands  were  at  last  free ;  and, 
while  the  Schmalkaldic  League  seemed  strong,  re- 
cent events  had  greatly  weakened  it.  It  has  already 
been  pointed  out  that  Landgrave  Philip's  actions 
were  bound  by  the  use  that  Charles  V.  made  of  his 
bigamy.  Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg,  won  by  the 
imperial  favor,  held  aloof  from  the  league  without 
joining  the  Catholics.  But  more  important  was 
the  attitude  of  the  young  head  of  ducal  Saxony, 
Moritz  (1521-53),  who  had  succeeded  that  earnest 


204  The  Reformation. 

supporter  of  Lutheranism,  Duke  Heinrich,  in  1 541. 
By  1542,  Moritz  had  withdrawn  from  the  Schmal- 
kaldic  union  and  was  evidently  anxious  to  stand 
well  in  the  eyes  of  the  emperor.  How  far  the  keen- 
sighted  plans  for  his  own  advancement  which 
Moritz  later  developed  were  already  formed  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  But  he  was  determined  to  rise 
from  his  comparatively  insignificant  station  among 
the  princes  of  Germany,  and,  if  service  to  the  em- 
peror could  aid  that  rising,  his  Protestantism  was 
not  ardent  enough  to  constitute  a  barrier.  It  was 
ominous  for  the  future  that  Moritz  had  nearly  come 
to  war  with  his  kinsman,  the  Saxon  elector,  in  1542, 
over  the  possession  of  a  petty  district  to  which  they 
both  laid  claim.  Such  a  man,  dominated  by  politi- 
cal and  personal  ambitions  rather  than  by  rehgious 
motives,  was  an  agent  admirably  adapted  to  effect 
that  division  in  the  Protestant  ranks  which  the  em- 
peror desired.  But  it  was  not  till  May,  1546,  that 
Charles  could  be  wholly  sure  of  Moritz's  support, 
and  dared  fully  to  risk  the  wager  of  war. 

It  was  just  before  the  affairs  of  the  Protestants 
had  reached  this  crisis  that  Luther  died  at  Eisleben, 
the  place  of  his  birth,  on  February  18,  1546.  He 
had  gone  thither  from  Wittenberg  as  a  peacemaker 
between  the  counts  of  Mansfeld.  He  was  in  active 
service  to  the  last,  and  he  died  in  the  comfort  of  the 
Christian  hope  and  in  the  confidence  of  the  beliefs 
for  which  he  had  fought  so  strenuous  a  battle.  His 
last  years  had  been  full  of  trial.  His  health  had 
long  been  poor.  He  had  suffered  much  from  the 
stone.     The  quarrels  of  the  reformers,  in  which  he 


Luther  s  Death.  205 

had  borne  his  full  share,  distressed  him.  His  own 
violent  temper  had  cost  him  many  friends.  And 
he  grieved  much  that  the  reformed  doctrines  won 
but  an  imperfect  control  over  the  lives  of  his  fol- 
lowers. He  was  often  cast  down  in  spirit,  disposed 
to  withdraw  from  Wittenberg  and  all  its  annoy- 
ances. But  his  home  life  was  a  constant  source  of 
consolation,  his  faith  in  the  Gospel,  as  he  had  pro- 
claimed it,  was  unshakable,  and  his  every  mo- 
ment was  occupied  with  the  activities  which  were 
entailed  by  preaching  and  instruction,  by  the  de- 
fence of  the  Reformation,  and  by  the  consideration 
of  the  multitudinous  questions  on  which  he  was 
consulted  affecting  the  conduct  and  interests  of 
individuals  of  all  ranks,  as  well  as  the  larger  affairs 
of  Church  and  State.  The  Reformation  movement 
had,  indeed,  passed  far  beyond  his  control  long 
before  his  death  ;  but  while  he  was  of  the  living  no 
man  spoke  with  such  popular  authority  in  Germany, 
nor  has  any  son  of  the  Fatherland  lived  in  memory 
as  has  he.  He  sleeps,  in  well-earned  rest,  beside 
the  altar  of  the  Castle  Church  at  Wittenberg,  to 
the  door  of  which  he  had  nailed  his  theses  twenty- 
eight  eventful  years  before  his  death. 

It  was  not  till  the  June  following  Luther's  burial 
that  Johann  Friedrich  of  electoral  Saxony  and  Phihp 
of  Hesse  were  aware  that  they  were  in  danger, 
though  the  full  extent  of  the  union  against  them 
was  even  then  wholly  unsuspected.  On  June  20, 
1546,  electoral  Saxony  and  Hesse  were  declared 
under  imperial  ban.  The  Schmalkaldic  army  was 
promptly  raised  for  their  defence,  and  was  in  the 


2o6  The  Reformation. 


field  before  the  promised  help  could  reach  the  em> 
peror  from  the  pope  and  the  Netherlands.  The 
Protestants  might  have  won,  but  their  first  sharp 
push  forward  was  followed  by  divided  counsels  and 
by  hesitation  about  invading  the  territories  of  neigh- 
bors whom  they  still  believed  to  be  neutral,  and  the 
auspicious  moment  passed.  Moritz's  attitude  at 
first  was  one  of  apparent  neutrality  ;  but  in  October 
Charles  V.  entered  into  a  formal  agreement  by 
which,  in  event  of  success,  the  electoral  title  of  his 
kinsman,  Johann  Friedrich,  should  be  transferred  to 
him.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  could  Moritz  become 
a  prince  of  the  first  rank  in  the  empire.  That  he 
was  greatly  indebted  to  the  relative  whose  title  and 
a  part  of  whose  lands  he  would  thus  appropriate  did 
not  weigh  with  him.  He  hesitated  no  longer. 
Acting  in  conjunction  with  the  emperor's  brother, 
Ferdinand,  he  attacked  the  Schmalkaldic  lands  on 
their  undefended  rear.  The  league  fell.  Though 
Johann  Friedrich  was  able  to  drive  Moritz  for  the 
moment  out  of  his  territories,  he  met  the  emperor's 
army  at  Miihlberg,  on  April  24,  1547,  was  defeated 
and  taken  prisoner.  His  title  and  more  than  half 
his  lands,  including  Wittenberg,  passed  permanently 
to  Moritz.  On  June  19,  following,  Philip  of  Hesse 
surrendered,  and,  like  the  Saxon  elector,  was  im- 
prisoned by  the  victorious  Charles,  who  now  had 
German  Protestantism  in  his  power.  Only  the  lower 
Saxon  cities,  led  by  Magdeburg,  Bremen  and  Hami- 
burg,  offered  effective  resistance.  The  collapse  was 
as  complete  as  it  was  surprising. 

Of  the  full  fruits  of  this  victory  Charles  V.  was 


The  Protestants  Defeated. 


robbed,  however,  by  the  pope.  The  emperor  wished 
the  council,  which  had  begun  at  Trent  in  December, 
1545,  to  take  up  reforms  and  proceed  slowly,  hold- 
ing itself  ready  to  make  moderate  doctrinal  conces- 
sions to  the  defeated  Protestants.  The  papacy 
feared  councils,  and  desired  that  that  of  Trent 
should  define  Catholic  doctrine,  hold  a  short  session, 
and  go  home.  The  emperor  wished  the  Protestants 
to  share  in  the  council,  the  pope  did  not.  And 
Charles's  rapid  victories  filled  the  pope  with  alarm 
lest  the  emperor's  wishes  regarding  the  council 
should  be  more  influential  than  his  own.  Accord- 
ingly, in  March,  1547,  Paul  III.  declared  the  council 
adjourned  to  the  papal  city  of  Bologna,  where  it 
might  be  more  fully  under  his  control.  The  vic- 
torious emperor  was  now  placed  in  the  curious  posi- 
tion of  an  opponent  at  once  of  the  pope  and  of  the 
Protestants,  yet  an  opponent  who  was  engaged  in 
an  attempt  to  reunite  the  divided  Church.  At  the 
Reichstag  held  at  Augsburg  in  1547-48,  he  therefore 
came  forward  with  a  proposition  of  his  own  for  the 
settlement  of  the  religious  questions  of  Germany. 
The  Protestants  were  compelled  to  agree  to  submit 
to  the  council,  which  the  emperor  would  bring  back 
to  Trent,  and  meanwhile  a  provisional  arrangement — 
the  Augsburg  Interim — should  be  in  force,  whereby 
priestly  marriage  and  the  cup  for  the  laity  were  in- 
deed to  be  permitted,  but  Roman  doctrine,  worship 
and  government  were  essentially  to  be  restored. 

By  decree  of  the'  Reichstag,  the  Interim  gained 
legal  authority  on  June  30,  1548  ;  but  it  was  ex- 
tremely unpopular,  and  was  only  partially  and  super- 


2o8  The  Reformation. 


ficially  enforced  save  where  the  emperor  was  specially 
powerful,  as  in  south  Germany.      Nowhere   was  it 
more  disliked  than  in  Saxony  ;  and  there   the  new 
elector,  Moritz,  procured  the  adoption,  in  December, 
1548,  of  a  modified  arrangement — the  Leipzig  In- 
terim— prepared  by   Melanchthon  and  other  theo- 
logians, as  well  as  by  lay  advisers  of  the  elector.      It 
was  a  pitiful  document.     The  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith  alone  was,  indeed,  preserved,  and  the 
extrem.er    Catholic    teachings    were    modified,    but 
Roman  worship  and  government  were  largely  re- 
introduced as  "things  indifferent;"  and  in  a  pri- 
vately  intended    though  widely    published    letter, 
Melanchthon  affirmed  regarding  his  dead  colleague  : 
"  Formerly  I   bore  an  almost  unseemly  servitude, 
since  Luther  often  gave  way  to  his  temperament." 
Doubtless  Melanchthon,  the  man  of  peace,  sincerely 
believed  that  it  was  better  to  preserve  what  con- 
cessions could  secure  for   the  Protestant  churches 
rather   than    risk   their   total    destruction,    and  his 
statement  regarding  Luther  was  true  ;  but  it  is  not 
surprising  that  inflexible  Lutherans  such  as  Matthias 
Flacius,  known    from    the    region   of   his   birth   as 
Illyricus  (1520-75),  or  Nikolaus  von  Amsdorf  (1483- 
1565),  from  the  defiant  city  of  Magdeburg,  attacked 
the  Interims  and  charged  Melanchthon,  by  reason 
of  his  compliance  with  that  of  Leipzig  and  certain 
doctrinal  departures  from  Luther's  teachings,  with 
apostasy  from  the  Christian  faith.     The  bitter  in- 
ternal dissensions  of  Lutheranism  had  begun. 

Unpopular   as  the    Interims   were,  the   emperor 
seemed,  nevertheless,  likely  to  succeed  in  his  pur- 


The  Interhns.  209 


poses?  of  inducing  the  pope  to  follow  his  wishes  as 
to  the  approval  of  the  council  at  Trent,  and  of 
forcing  the  Protestants  to  recognize  in  the  council 
a  propter  judicial  body  to  decide  their  questions  of 
faith.  Paul  III.  was  induced  to  abandon  the  rival 
council  at  Bologna;  and  in  May,  1551,  by  the  con- 
sent of  his  successor,  Julius  III.  (pope  1550-55),  the 
council  was  reopened  at  Trent.  In  January,  1552, 
the  civil  representatives  of  Saxony  and  WUrtemberg 
appeared  before  it,  and  theologians  would  also  have 
followed  had  not  the  emperor  suddenly  experi- 
enced a  defeat  even  more  complete  than  his  victory 
of  1547. 

Many  causes  contributed  to  create  opposition  to 
Charles  V.  The  unpopularity  of  the  Interims  was 
one.  But  even  more  influential  were  the  fears 
which  the  emperor's  efforts  to  increase  the  imperial 
authority  by  political  centralization  and  to  secure 
ultimate  succession  to  the  imperial  throne  for  his 
son  Philip — the  later  Philip  II.  of  Spain — aroused 
in  the  German  territorial  rulers,  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant. Much  sympathy  was  felt  for  the  defeated 
ex-elector  and  landgrave  in  their  protracted  im- 
prisonment. But  this  public  sentiment  would  have 
availed  little  had  it  not  found  a  capable  leader  in 
the  same  Moritz  of  Saxony  who  had  cost  Protes- 
tantism so  dearly  in  1 546  and  1 547.  The  character 
of  Moritz  is  one  of  the  most  puzzling  of  the 
Reformation  age,  chiefly  because  in  a  century  in 
which  religious  considerations  largely  shaped  men's 
actions  his  thoughts  seem  almost  exclusively  polit- 
ical.    Various  reasons  may  be  given  for  his  rising 


2IO  The  Reformation. 

opposition  to  the  emperor.  The  continued  im- 
prisonment of  his  father-in-law,  Philip  of  Hesse, 
irritated  him.  The  opportunity  to  put  himself 
right  with  the  prevailing  Protestantism  of  northern 
Germany,  and  to  lead  in  the  next  great  political 
movement,  attracted  him.  It  is  probably  useless  to 
attempt  to  guess  the  range  of  his  thought.  He 
may  have  followed  the  political  impulse  of  the 
moment  with  no  further  intent  than  to  grasp  its 
immediate  advantage  ;  or  there  may  have  risen  be- 
fore him  that  vast  conception  which  Frederick  the 
Great  and  Bismarck  were  to  make  real — the  concep- 
tion of  a  dominant  German  state  built  on  the  ruins 
of  the  divided  empire,  having  its  seat  in  north 
Germany,  and  wresting  the  control  of  German 
affairs  from  the  line  of  Austria.  Whatever  may 
have  been  his  aspiration,  in  rising  from  the  position 
of  a  noble  of  the  second  rank  to  the  electorate  and 
to  the  control  of  the  most  powerful  territory  in 
northern  Germany,  Moritz  had  gained  all  that  the 
emperor  could  give  him.  All  further  progress  for 
him  lay  in  opposition  to  Charles. 

Moritz  did  not  at  first  betray  his  altered  purposes. 
An  excuse  for  placing  himself  at  the  head  of  a  large 
army  he  found  most  conveniently  in  the  command 
of  the  forces  besieging  the  strongly  Protestant  city 
of  Magdeburg — a  command  to  which  he  was  desig- 
nated by  the  emperor  and  the  Reichstag  in  the 
autumn  of  1550.  In  February,  1551,  Moritz  came 
to  a  secret  understanding  with  the  warlike  Margrave 
Johann  of  Bijandenburg  (Hans  of  Kiistrin,  1535- 
71)  regarding   common   action    for   the    release   of 


The  Emperor  'Defeated.  1 1 1 

the  imprisoned  princes  and  opposition  to  the  em- 
peror ;  and  the  confederacy  was  soon  extended, 
through  Johann's  mediation,  to  Johann  Albrecht  of 
Mecklenburg  and  Phihp  of  Hesse's  eldest  son, 
Wilhelm.  The  allies  next  applied  to  Henry  H.  of 
France  and  to  Edward  VI.  of  England  for  financial 
help.  On  January  15,  1552,  the  French  king  en- 
tered into  an  agreement  by  which,  in  return  for 
money  to  aid  the  conspirators,  and  a  renewal  of  the 
war  against  Charles  V.,  he  was  to  be  permitted  to 
take  possession  of  the  great  imperial  border-fortress 
cities  of  Metz,  Toul,  Verdun  and  Cambrai.  It  was, 
indeed,  as  an  "  imperial  vicar" — that  is,  as  recog- 
nizing their  integrity  as  part  of  the  empire — that 
Henry  was  to  rule  these  cities  ;  but  their  alienation, 
and  the  actual  annexation  to  France  of  the  three 
first  named,  was  a  sorry  price  to  pay  for  foreign  as- 
sistance in  the  internal  disputes  of  the  empire. 
Meanwhile  Moritz  had  made  easy  terms  with  Magde- 
burg. Head  thus  of  a  free  army  already  in  the  field, 
supported  by  the  forces  of  Hesse  and  Brandenburg- 
Culmbach,  and  sure  of  French  assistance,  Moritz 
pushed  rapidly  southward  against  the  emperor  in 
March,  1552,  On  April  4,  he  took  possession  of 
the  great  imperial  city  of  Augsburg.  The  Catholic 
princes,  jealous  of  the  emperor's  recently  increased 
power,  put  no  hindrances  in  his  way.  Charles  V. 
was  at  Innsbruck  in  the  Tyrol,  unable  as  yet  to  get 
together  any  formidable  body  of  troops.  Thither- 
ward Moritz  pressed.  Only  flight  by  night  and  a 
slight  delay  of  the  oncoming  forces  by  reason  of  a 
brief  mutiny  over  arrears  of  pay  saved  Charles  from 


212  The  Reformation. 

falling  into  Moritz's  victorious  hands.  The  gigantic 
plans  which  the  emperor  had  so  patiently,  and  ap- 
parently so  successfully,  wrought  out  for  the  re- 
union of  the  Church  and  the  development  of  the 
imperial  power  were  suddenly  shattered.  The  Prot- 
estants were  further  from  the  Roman  communion 
than  ever.  His  French  foes  had  mastered  an  im- 
portant portion  of  the  empire.  His  life-work  was  in 
ruins. 

Charles  gave  over  the  negotiations  for  peace 
largely  to  his  brother  Ferdinand,  and,  after  discus- 
sions at  Passau  and  near  Frankfort,  an  agreement 
was  reached — the  Treaty  of  Passau — in  July,  1552, 
by  which  the  imprisoned  Saxon  and  Hessian  princes 
were  released,  and  toleration  was  granted  till  a 
Reichstag  should  decide  how  the  religious  question 
could  best  be  settled. 

It  was  not  till  three  years  later,  at  the  Reichstag 
held  in  Augsburg  in  1555,  that  the  rights  of  Protes- 
tants and  Catholics  in  the  empire  were  legally  de- 
fined. Before  that  eventful  assembly,  two  of  the 
great  figures  on  the  imperial  stage  had  passed  from 
the  scenes.  A  shot  fired  in  a  battle  at  Sievers- 
hausen  between  the  forces  of  Moritz  and  those  of 
his  unruly  neighbor,  Margrave  Albrecht  of  Bran- 
denburg-Culmbach,  on  July  9,  1553,  resulted  two 
days  later  in  the  death,  at  the  still  youthful  age  of 
thirty-two,  of  the  scheming,  selfish,  able  and  efificient 
Saxon  elector  and  the  loss  to  German  Protestantism 
thereby  of  its  most  talented,  though  least  deserving 
political  leader.  The  passing  of  his  greater  oppo- 
nent, Charles  V.,   was  less  dramatic,   but  he,  too. 


Charles  Vis  Last  Days.  213 

ceases  now  to  be  an  actor  on  the  stage  of  German 
affairs.  Disappointed  and  broken  in  spirit  and 
feeble  in  body,  his  thoughts  turned  from  the  Ger- 
many of  his  recent  defeats  to  the  newer  and  more 
alluring  prospect  of  winning  England  for  the  Roman 
cause  and  for  his  own  family  interest  by  the  mar- 
riage of  his  son  Philip  to  Queen  Mary — a  marriage 
that  took  place  on  July  25,  1554.  That  summer  he 
handed  over  to  his  brother  Ferdinand  full  authority 
to  conduct  the  affairs  of  Germany.  Ferdinand's 
reign  now  really  began,  though  it  was  not  till  Sep- 
tember, 1556,  that  Charles  formally  surrendered  the 
imperial  crown,  and  not  till  February,  1558,  that  the 
resignation  was  formally  accepted.  Charles  had 
decided  to  lay  down  all  the  cares  of  state.  By  suc- 
cessive acts  he  bestowed  upon  his  son  Philip  (1527- 
98)  his  Italian  possessions  (1554),  the  Netherlands 
(October,  1555),  and  the  crown  of  Spain  itself  (Jan- 
uary, 1556).  The  imperial  throne  he  could  not 
obtain  for  Philip ;  and  Germany  and  Spain,  so 
strangely  united  under  the  rule  of  Charles  V.,  could 
be  not  longer  even  loosely  joined.  In  February, 
1557,  the  weary  emperor  reached  his  resting-place, 
the  monastery  of  St.  Jerome  at  Yuste,  in  Spain. 
He  did  not  become  a  monk.  He  allowed  himself 
many  enjoyments  in  food  and  drink.  He  wrote  and 
received  many  letters,  and  advised  his  son  much  on 
the  conduct  of  affairs.  But,  most  of  all,  he  gave 
himself  up  to  the  exercises  of  mediaeval  piety.  He 
uttered  his  regret  that  he  had  not  burned  Luther 
when  he  had  him  in  his  power  at  Worms  in  1521. 
But  Charles's  life  was  soon  over.     On  September  21, 


214  '^^^   Reformation. 

1558,  he  died.  Cold,  calculating,  far-sighted,  pa- 
tient, it  was  his  fate  to  be  ruler  of  two  most  diverse 
lands,  Ggrmany  and  Spain,  at  the  most  difficult 
moment  in  European  history,  the  outbreak  of  the 
great  religious  revolt.  That  revolt  he  never  under- 
stood. He  could  never  grasp  its  deeper  spiritual 
meaning.  But  he  sought,  in  his  own  way,  the  puri- 
fication and  the  union  of  the  Church  ;  and  though 
his  way  was  not  that  of  the  largest  human  progress, 
his  must  always  remain  one  of  the  great  figures  on 
the  Reformation  stage. 

The  military  struggles  between  Catholics  and 
Protestants  in  Germany,  from  1546  to  1552,  had 
resulted  in  the  successive  defeats  of  both  parties, 
but  not  in  the  thorough  subjugation  of  either.  The 
materials  for  further  contests  were  still  present.  But 
both  sides  wanted  peace.  Yet  it  was  not  easy  to  for- 
mulate the  basis  on  which  peace  should  be  secured. 
To  recognize  the  existence  of  two  Churches  was  to 
abandon  a  great  historic  thought — that  of  the  visi- 
ble, organic  unity  of  Christendom.  But  on  no  other 
terms  than  mutual  toleration  could  peace  be  se- 
cured ;  and,  after  long  negotiation,  the  new  law  of 
the  empire  was  enacted  by  the  Reichstag  on  Sep- 
tember 25,  1555. 

By  the  provisions  of  the  Augsburg  constitution, 
peace  and  equal  rights  in  the  empire  were  guar- 
anteed to  the  adherents  of  the  Roman  Church  and 
to  those  of  the  Augsburg  Confession.  To  no  other 
Protestants,  whether  Calvinists,  Zwinglians  or  Ana- 
baptists, were  any  rights  whatsoever  conceded.  It 
was  not  religious  toleration,  in  the  modern  sense, 


The  Peace  of  Augsburg.  215 

that  was  intended.  The  individual  inhabitants  of  a 
district  were  not  left  free  to  choose  Catholicism  or 
Lutheranism  as  their  form  of  faith.  That  choice 
was  allowed  only  to  territorial  rulers.  Whichever 
the  local  prince  or  the  government  of  an  imperial  city 
professed  was  to  be  the  religion  of  all  the  subjects 
— a  principle  often  expressed  in  the  phrase,  C2ijus 
regio,  ejus  rcligio.  Yet  subjects  who  disliked  the  re- 
ligion of  their  rulers  were  given  the  rights  to  sell 
their  goods  in  a  fair  market,  and  to  emigrate  freely 
to  some  other  territory — a  great  advance  on  punish- 
ment for  heresy.  So  far  there  was  fairly  ready  agree- 
ment. But  two  perplexing  questions  remained. 
What  was  to  be  done  about  the  church-lands  al- 
ready confiscated  by  the  Protestants  ;  and  what  was 
to  be  the  policy  toward  clerical  rulers  of  territory 
who  might  hereafter  become  Protestants?  In  re- 
gard to  the  lands,  the  date  of  the  Treaty  of  Passau 
was  arbitrarily  fixed  as  the  norm,  all  that  was  then 
in  Protestant  hands  being  allowed  to  remain  undis- 
turbed. But  for  the  future  it  was  conceded  to  the 
Catholics  that  when  a  Roman  spiritual  ruler  should 
become  a  Protestant,  instead  of  carrying  his  lands 
and  his  subjects  with  him,  he  should  resign  his  post 
and  possessions.  Yet  one  further  difficulty  re- 
mained. Within  territories  ruled  by  Catholic  spir- 
itual princes,  by  bishops  and  archbishops,  were  many 
Protestant  cities  and  nobles.  These  the  Protestants 
would  not  desert  to  the  operation  of  the  principle 
cujiis  regio,  ejus  religio.  They  could  not  secure  their 
protection  by  the  Augsburg  X-ixw  itself,  but  they  ob- 
tained from  Ferdinand  a  contemporary  Declaration 


2i6  The  Reformation. 

that  such  nobles  and  communities  in  lands  owning  a 
spiritual  head  as  had  long  been  Protestant  should 
remain  undisturbed. 

So  peace  came  at  last,  not  wholly  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  either  side,  with  concessions  to  both.  The 
settlement  was  denounced  by  the  pope.  It  had  in 
itself  seeds  of  future  quarrel.  But  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  was  as  fair  an  agreement  as  could  have 
been  reached  at  the  time.  For  Protestantism  it 
was  a  great  victory,  since  it  gave  to  the  Lutheran 
churches  a  full  legal  standing.  Yet  it  was  a  victory 
not  without  its  drawbacks.  The  Lutheran  move- 
ment must,  after  all,  remain  only  a  party  in  Chris- 
tendom, face  to  face  with  the  Roman.  An  all- 
embracing  reformation  of  the  whole  Church  in 
accordance  with  Luther's  conceptions  was  mani- 
festly impossible. 

But  if  external  peace  came  to  German  Lutheran- 
ism  in  1555,  that  year  marked  no  cessation  in  the 
bitter  internal  quarrels  regarding  doctrine  which  had 
distressed  the  Lutheran  communions  since  the  In- 
terims. To  a  large  extent  these  disputes  were  the 
natural  fruitage  of  the  emphasis  laid  by  the  reform- 
ers on  correctness  of  doctrine.  That  emphasis  was 
inevitable.  They  had  separated  from  the  papal  sys- 
tem primarily  because  of  what  they  deemed  its 
doctrinal  errors.  They  found  the  test  of  the  very 
existence  of  the  Church  in  the  pure  preaching  of  the 
Gospel.  They  necessarily  regarded  as  of  the  highest 
importance  agreement  as  to  what  pure  doctrine  was. 
Yet,  even  before  Luther's  death,  Melanchthon  had 
departed  from  Luther's  beliefs  in  several  important 


Melanchthon  s   Theology.  217 

particulars.  Convinced  of  the  danger  of  a  miscon- 
ception of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone 
on  the  part  of  the  undiscriminating  and  ignorant,  he 
emphasized  more  than  Luther  the  necessity  of  good 
works,  not  indeed  as  a  means  but  as  an  indispensable 
evidence  of  justification.  He  came,  secondly,  even 
before  the  Augsburg  Confession  was  prepared,  to  the 
conviction  that  the  strict  view  of  predestination 
which  he  had  presented  in  the  first  edition  of  the 
Loci  and  which  Luther  had  championed  against 
Erasmus  needed  substantial  modification.  The 
human  will  has  some  real  freedom.  It  is  a  coop- 
erant,  though  subordinate,  factor  in  conversion. 
The  Gospel  is  freely  offered  to  all.  "God  draws 
man,  but  he  draws  only  him  who  is  willing."  To 
this  thought  of  the  working  together  of  the  human 
will  with  the  Divine  Spirit  and  Word  in  conversion 
the  name  synergism  has  usually  been  given.  And 
in  a  third,  and  yet  more  important,  article  of  belief 
Melanchthon  gradually  drew  away  from  Luther. 
Till  after  the  composition  of  the  Augsburg  Confes- 
sion he  had  accepted  Luther's  view  of  Christ's  pres- 
ence in  the  Supper.  But  from  the  time  that  he  read 
CEcolampadius's  Dialogiis  of  1530,  his  view  began 
to  alter.  The  doctrine  of  Christ's  physical  ubiquity 
he  abandoned.  He  ceased  to  hold  that  Christ  was 
physically  present  in  the  bread.  He  viewed  the 
words  of  institution  as  symbolic.  But  he  neither 
reached  the  memorial  view  of  Zwingli  nor  Calvin's 
theory  of  a  spiritual  presence  received  by  faith 
alone.  To  Melanchthon,  Christ  was  always  some- 
how truly  present  to  believer  and  unbeliever  alike 


2i8  The  Reformation. 

in  the  Supper  ;  but  he  found  less  and  less  satisfac- 
tion in  Luther's  explanation  as  to  the  mode  of  that 
presence.  His  modification  of  view  appeared  in  the 
altered  edition  of  the  Augsburg  Confession  put  forth 
fin  1540.  It  is  illustrative  of  Luther's  generous  af- 
;  fection  for  Melanchthon  that  these  partial  estrange- 
ments of  view,  though  pointed  out  to  him  by  offi- 
cious friends,  led  to  no  rupture  ;  yet  Melanchthon 
undoubtedly  felt  a  good  deal  of  constraint  at  times 
in  Luther's  presence,  and  feared  that  their  friend- 
ship might  be  broken  ofl. 

Some  attacks  were,  indeed,  made  on  Melanch- 
thon's  orthodoxy  by  would-be  stricter  disciples  of 
Luther  during  Luther's  lifetime.  Johann  Agri- 
cola,  Conrad  Cordatus,  and  Nikolaus  von  Amsdorf 
assailed  Melanchthon's  teachings  on  the  use  of  the 
moral  law,  good  works  and  other  questions.  But  it 
was  only  after  the  acceptance  by  Melanchthon  of 
the  Leipzig  Interim  that  the  storm  broke  forth  with 
all  its  fury.  It  has  already  been  pointed  out  how 
defiant  Lutherans  like  Matthias  Flacius  attacked 
Melanchthon  from  such  retreats  as  Magdeburg  as  a 
traitor  to  the  Evangelical  cause.  The  division  but 
increased  after  Protestantism  was  restored.  In 
what  was  now  electoral  Saxony,  under  Moritz  and 
his  brother  and  successor  August  (elector  1553- 
86),  Melanchthon's  views  long  were  accepted  as 
the  normal  Lutheran  type.  But  the  stricter  Lu- 
therans of  the  Amsdorf  and  Flacius  party  branded 
the  sympathizers  with  Melanchthon  as  Philippists, 
and  found  support  in  the  princes  of  the  old 
deprived    Saxon    electoral   line,   who  looked  upon 


Doctrinal  Co7th'Oversics.  2  i  g 

Melanchthon's  continuance  at  the  University  of 
Wittenberg,  now  alienated  from  their  control,  as  a 
desertion  of  a  family  which  had  done  such  conspicu- 
ous service  for  the  Evangelical  cause.  In  some 
measure,  as  an  offset  to  the  Universities  of  Leipzig 
and  Wittenberg,  which  now  belonged  to  the  line 
that  had  gained  the  electoral  title  through  Moritz's 
defection  from  the  Protestant  cause,  the  deprived 
Saxon  house  sought  to  magnify  the  school  at  Jena, 
which  was  made  a  university  in  1558,  and  given  a 
strongly  anti-Melanchthonian  character  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  Flacius  to  one  of  its  professorships. 

Theological  disputes  sprang  up  thick  and  fast, 
and,  in  the  existent  insistence  on  purity  of  doctrine, 
each  was  magnified  into  a  vital  question.  Georg 
Major  (1502-74),  then  superintendent  at  Eisenach, 
having  afilirmed  that  good  works  are  necessary  to 
salvation,  was  attacked  by  Amsdorf,  who,  in  his 
vehemence,  went  to  the  extreme  of  asserting  that 
good  works  are  a  hindrance  to  the  Christian  life. 
Neither  of  these  contestants  was,  probably,  as  far 
from  the  other  as  he  seemed  to  his  opponent,  and 
Amsdorf  probably  meant  by  injurious  good  works 
such  works  as  a  man  trusted  as  having  a  salvatory 
value  in  themselves  ;  but  the  Lutheran  camp  was 
filled  with  the  din  of  battle.  Melanchthon's  "  syn- 
ergism "  drew  the  fire  of  Amsdorf  and  Flacius. 
But  that  thoroughgoing  champion  of  original  Lu- 
theranism,  Flacius  himself,  in  1560,  advanced  the 
disturbing  proposition,  in  his  recoil  from  Melanch- 
thon's admission  of  free-will  as  a  factor  in  conver- 
sion,  that  original  sin  has  become  the  very  substance 


2  20  The   Reformatio7t. 

of  man's  nature  and  that  the  human  will  always 
actively  resists  God.  This  brought  down  upon 
Flacius  the  wrath  not  merely  of  the  Melanchtho- 
nians,  but  of  many  of  the  stricter  Lutherans  who  had 
hitherto  been  his  friends. 

Parallel  to  these  disputes  ran  others  of  equal 
fierceness.  The  eminent  reformer  of  Nuremberg, 
Andreas  Osiander  (1498-15 52),  driven  forth  by  the 
Interim,  found  a  refuge  and  a  post  of  influence  in  a 
pastorate  and  professorship  at  Konigsberg.  There, 
in  1549  and  1550,  he  advanced  the  view  that  justifi- 
cation works  not  an  imputation  of  Christ's  right- 
eousness, but  a  positive  righteousness  in  the  one 
justified  due  to  the  continual  mystical  infusion  of 
Christ's  divine  nature.  He  laid  stress  on  the 
incarnation  rather  than  on  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 
To  his  thinking,  Melanchthon  was  a  minister  of 
Satan  ;  yet  not  merely  Melanchthonians  but  Flacius 
and  other  strict  Lutherans  attacked  Osiander,  and 
even  his  death  did  not  end  the  bitter  strife. 

The  same  year  that  witnessed  the  death  of 
Osiander,  1552,  beheld  the  outbreak  of  an  attack 
upon  Melanchthon  and  his  party  by  the  strict 
Lutherans  led  by  a  strenuous  opponent  of  Calvin's 
doctrine  of  Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper,  Joachim 
Westphal,  of  Hamburg  (1510?-! 574).  Westphal 
accused  them  of  "  Crypto-Calvinism  " — that  is,  of  a 
secret  introduction  of  obnoxious  Calvinistic  theo- 
ries, and  the  bitterness  of  the  dispute  was  height- 
ened by  the  fact  that,  largely  under  Westphal's 
influence,  the  north  German  merchant-cities  re- 
fused  to   receive    the    poor    Marian    exiles    Vom 


Docirmal  Controversies.  221 

England  because  those  refugees  sympathized  with 
Calvin  on  the  disputed  question.  Calvin's  energetic 
defence  of  his  doctrine  but  added  fuel  to  the  flames, 
the  more  so  that  he  claimed  that  Melanchthon  was 
essentially  of  his  opinion. 

No  wonder  that,  as  the  much-harassed  Melanch- 
thon neared  his  end,  he  gave  as  one  reason  why  he 
wished  to  lay  down  an  earthly  career  that  had  been 
so  full  of  conflict  and  criticism  that  he  might  escape 
"  the  rage  of  the  theologians."  On  April  19,  1560, 
the  peace-loving,  scholarly,  pure-souled  friend  of 
Luther  came  to  the  close  of  his  useful  life,  and  he 
rests  in  the  Castle  Church  at  Wittenberg  by  the 
side  of  the  older  and  more  vehement  reformer 
with  whom  his  name  must  be  forever  joined. 

Melanchthon's  death  made,  however,  no  differ- 
ence in  the  theological  disputes  within  the  Lutheran 
camp,  or  in  the  attacks  upon  his  modifications  of 
Luther's  teachings.  But,  till  1574,  the  Philippists 
continued  dominant  in  electoral  Saxony  and  con- 
trolled its  universities,  Leipzig  and  Wittenberg. 
On  that  most  disputed  question  of  Christ's  presence 
in  the  Supper,  the  Philippists  more  and  more  fully 
approached  Calvin's  position.  In  the  year  just 
mentioned,  however.  Elector  August  turned  upon 
the  Philippist  theologians,  in  whom  he  now  per- 
ceived a  degree  of  Calvinism  that  he  had  thus  far 
not  suspected,  deposing  the  now  discredited  Witten- 
berg professors,  and  imprisoning  the  leading  Philip- 
pists, among  them  Melanchthon's  son-in-law,  Kas- 
par  Peucer  (i 525-1602).  A  medal  was  struck  com- 
memorative of  the  deposition  of   the  Wittenberg 


2  22  The  Reformation. 

teachers,  who  were  represented  on  it  as  visibly  as- 
sociated with  the  Devil.  On  the  death  of  Elector 
August  in  1586,  the  Philippists  raised  their  heads 
under  Christian  I.,  only  to  be  struck  down  again 
and  their  leaders  persecuted  when  he  was  succeeded 
by  a  regency  in  the  name  of  Christian  II.,  in   1591. 

Out  of  this  confused  conflict  came,  however,  in 
1577,  an  important  Lutheran  symbol — the  Formula 
of  Concord.  This  last  of  the  great  Lutheran  creeds 
was  the  product  of  an  almost  infinite  amount  of  nego- 
tiation encouraged  by  several  Lutheran  princes  and 
carried  out  by  a  number  of  theologians,  of  whom 
Jakob  Andreae  (1528-90),  of  Tubingen,  Martin 
Chemnitz  (1522-86),  of  Brunswick,  and  Nikolaus 
Selnecker  (1530-92)  were  the  chief.  On  June  25, 
1580,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Augsburg  Con- 
fession, the  Formula  of  Concord  was  published  by 
the  Elector  August.  It  was  intended  2S  an  end  to 
the  perplexed  strife  of  the  previous  years.  Not  as 
extreme  as  Flacius  and  some  of  his  associates,  it 
never  mentions  Melanchthon's  name,  it  quotes  Lu- 
ther with  most  reverential  deference  to  his  authority, 
and  it  leans  decidedly  to  the  stricter  Lutheran  side. 
As  one  turns  its  pages  and  compares  its  minute, 
technical,  scholastic  discussions  with  the  brief, 
fresh  statements  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  one 
feels  himself  in  a  wholly  unlike  atmosphere.  The 
fresh,  free  period  of  investigation  is  gone,  a  new 
confessionalism,  hair-splitting,  learned,  dry,  has 
taken  its  place. 

When  Lutherans  so  divided  among  themselves,  a 
union  with  the  Calvinists  who  were  pressing,  from 


Doctrinal  Controversies.  223 

1563  onward,  into  western  Germany  was  incon- 
ceivable. To  the  stricter  Lutherans  they  seemed  as 
objectionable  as  the  Catholics.  Germany  was  di- 
vided into  three  religious  parties. 

No  wonder  that,  under  these  circumstances,  Prot- 
estantism in  Germany  began  slowly  to  lose  ground 
before  the  awakening  Catholicism  of  the  counter- 
Reformation.  A  careful  Italian  diplomat  estimated 
the  Lutherans,  immediately  after  the  Peace  of  Augs- 
burg of  1555,  at  seven-tenths  of  the  population  of 
the  empire.  To  other  Protestant  sects  he  credited 
a  fifth,  and  to  the  Catholics  only  a  tenth  of  the  peo- 
ple. Possibly  his  figures  exaggerated  the  Protestant 
strength  ;  but  the  Roman  party  might  well  feel  dis- 
couraged. Many,  Protestant  and  Catholic  alike, 
believed  that  the  empire  was  about  to  tear  itself 
wholly  loose  from  Rome.  Probably  that  result 
would  not,  in  any  event,  have  occurred.  But  cer- 
tainly soon  after  the  year  1570  was  passed,  if  not 
before,  the  detrimental  effects  of  Protestant  dis- 
putes and  divisions  were  discernible.  Protestantism 
has  never  since  held  so  large  a  relative  portion  of 
Germany  as  in  its  flood-tide  in  the  third  quarter  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  Its  own  divisions  were,  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  to  threaten  its  political  ex- 
istence. But,  whatever  its  shortcomings,  the  Lu- 
theran movement  had  struck  its  roots  deep  and  for. 
ever  into  German  national  life.  It  had  presented  a 
new  and  fruitful  view  of  the  way  of  salvation.  It 
had  emphasized  the  Christian  home.  It  had  fos- 
tered not  the  least  winsome  of  the  varying  types  of 
Christian  piety.     It  had  successfully  substituted  the 


2  24  ^^^^  Reformation. 

authority  of  Scripture  for  that  of  the  papacy  and  of 
the  mediaeval  Church.  Above  all,  it  had,  with  all  its 
limitations,  greatly  advanced  intellectual  and  re- 
ligious freedom. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CALVIN   AND    HIS  WORK. 

RANGE,  unlike  Germany  or  Spain, 
seems  to  have  had  Httle  popular  con- 
sciousness of  a  religious  mission  in  the 
Reformation  age.  The  Reformation 
movement^brought  great  ^  turm^oil  and 
much  civil  strife  to  the  land  ;  but  its  people  as  a 
whole  were  never  profoundly  penetrated  by  Evan- 
gelical ideas  as  were  those  of  Germany.  The 
French  Protestants  probably  never  numbered  more 
than  a  tent.h  of  the  population  of  the  land.  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  the  French  such  convinced 
and  strenuous  supporters  of  the  older  Church  as  the 
people  of  Spain.  Situated  between  Germany  and 
Spain  geographically,  France  was,  to  some  extent, 
a  debatable  ground  between  the  two  types  of 
Reformation  that  were  to  divide  Europe.  Yet  the 
vast  preponderance  of  the  population  was  always 
on  the  Roman  side. 

Politically,  France  presented  a  great  contrast  to 
Germany.  East  of  the  Rhine  all  was  division.  In 
France,  national  unity,  thanks  to  Louis  XI.  (king 
1461-83),  Charles  VIII.  (1483-98)  and  Louis  XII. 
(1498-15 1 5),  had  reached  a  higher  development  than 

225 


2  26  The  Reformation. 

elsewhere  in  Europe.  Under  Francis  I.  (1515- 
47),  the  Hfe-long  rival  of  Charles  V.  for  the 
political  headship  of  Christendom,  France  had  a 
popular  sovereign,  a  brilliant  court  and  military 
glory.  The  wars  with  Charles  V.  turned  out  badly 
for  France,  but  they  had  the  approval  of  the  French 
nobles.  Francis  himself  was  affable,  dignified, 
courteous,  impetuous,  dissolute.  The  cool  and  far- 
seeing  Charles  V.,  though  not  of  blameless  moral 
life,  seemed,  in  comparison  with  Francis,  a  man  of 
deep  religion  and  character.  Francis  had  no  pro- 
found religious  convictions.  His  admiration  for 
the  humanistic  scholarship  of  his  age  inclined  him 
to  be  tolerant  where  tolerance  cost  him  nothing. 
Probably  had  he  viewed  the  Reformation  simply 
from  a  religious  standpoint,  he  would  have  been 
largely  indifferent  to  it.  He  had  not  the  slightest 
hesitation  about  entering  into  league  with  foreign 
Protestants,  or  even  with  the  Turks,  when  it  suited 
his  political  advantage.  But  two  political  consid 
erations  always  limited,  and  often  overbore,  Fran 
cis's  tolerance.  He  desired  to  cultivate  the  good> 
will  of  the  pope  as  a  military  and  spiritual  ally  in 
his  struggles  with  Charles,  and  he  wished  that  the 
French  Church  should  be  unaltered  in  constitution 
and  undisturbed  by  contention.  From  that  Church, 
Francis  drew  great  revenues.  By  him  in  reality  its 
higher  ofificers  were  nominated.  It  was  a  mighty 
organ  of  political  power,  and  the  king  viewed  any 
alteration  in  its  constitution  as  likely  to  weaken  his 
own  throne.  Hence,  though  naturally  rather  easy- 
going, Francis  persecuted  Protestantism  as  soon  as 
it  became  at  all  powerful. 


Forces  at  Work  m  France.  227 


In  Francis's  gifted  elder  sister,  Marguerite  d'An- 
gouleme  (1492-1549),  toleration  was  a  principle  of 
force,  and  the  protection  that  she  afforded  to 
Protestants,  and,  indeed,  to  men  of  liberal  ideas 
generally,  made  her  an  important  factor  in  the  story 
of  the  French  reformatory  movement.  Married,  in 
1509,  to  one  of  the  prominent  nobles  of  the  French 
court,  the  Duke  d'Alengon,  she  exercised  a  power- 
ful influence  over  her  royal  brother,  to  whom  she 
was  warmly  attached,  while  by  her  second  marriage, 
in  1527,  two  years  after  the  death  of  her  first  hus- 
band, to  Henri  d'Albret,  king  of  Navarre,  she 
became  the  head  of  a  little  court  at  Nerac  (in  B6arn 
or  French  Navarre),  less  than  a  hundred  miles  north 
of  the  Pyrenees,  where  she  granted  a  protection 
elsewhere  denied  on  French  soil  to  many  opponents 
of  Rome  as  long  as  she  lived. 

The  reformatory  movement  entered  France 
through  the  doorway  of  the  revival  of  learning. 
Indeed,  its  founder,  Jacques  Le  Fevre  (1455?- 
1536)  of  Etaples  (Faber  Stapulensis),  was  always 
primarily  a  humanist,  A  man  notably  diminutive 
of  figure,  modest  and  gentle  in  bearing,  of  wide 
learning  and  deep  piety,  Le  Fevre  was  not  adapted 
for  the  rough  work  of  a  Luther,  but  he  won  devoted 
friends  for  his  views.  From  1507  to  1520,  his  home 
was  in  the  abbey  of  St.  Germain-des-Pres,  at  Paris, 
of  which  his  friend,  Guillaume  Brigonnet  (1468- 
1533),  better  known  from  15 16  onward  as  bishop  of 
Meaux,  was  for  some  years  abbot.  Here  Le  Fevre 
turned  from  the  study  of  the  classics  to  that  of  the 
Scriptures,  aided    by   the   monastery   library.     As 


228  The  Reformation. 

fruits  of  his  new  labors,  appeared,  in  1509,  his  Com- 
mentary on  the  Psalms;  and,  in  15 12,  his  exposi- 
tion and  translation  of  the  Pauline  epistles,  in  the 
preface  to  which  he  asserted  the  unique  authority 
of  the  Bible,  declared  salvation  unmerited,  denied 
the  merit  of  good  works,  criticised  priestly  celibacy 
and  the  sacrificial  doctrine  of  the  mass,  and  affirmed 
a  reformation  to  be  at  hand.  Le  F^vre  had  thus,  in 
1 5 12,  arrived  at  many  of  the  positions  that  Luther 
did  not  attain  till  some  years  thereafter.  But  Le 
F^vre,  though  a  man  of  courage,  was  not  a  leader 
like  Luther,  and  France  was  not  ready  as  was 
Germany.  In  1522  he  continued  his  Biblical  studies 
with  a  Commentary  on  the  Four  Evangelists,  which 
the  ancient  theological  school  of  Paris,  the  Sor- 
bonne,  condemned  in  1523,  as  it  had  already  two 
years  before  his  opinions  regarding  Mary  Magda- 
lene. Le  Fevre  found  protection,  however,  from 
his  friend  Bishop  Bri^onnet,  and  wa&  appointed  by 
him  general-vicar  of  Meaux  in  1523.  But  the  more 
strenuous  persecution  inaugurated  by  the  regency 
that  ruled  France  after  the  capture  of  Francis  L  on 
the  battle-field  of  Pavia,  compelled  Le  Fevre  to  fly 
to  Strassburg  two  years  later.  Francis,  on  regain- 
ing his  liberty,  called  the  exile  home  and  made  him 
tutor  to  the  royal  children  and  librarian  at  Blois  ; 
and,  at  the  request  of  Francis  and  Marguerite 
d'Angouleme,  he  labored  on  a  translation  of  the 
Bible  which  Calvin's  cousin,  Pierre  Robert  Olivetan 
(P-I538),  completed  and  published  in  1535  and 
made  the  version  in  general  use  by  the  Protestants 
of  France.     But  increasing  persecution  imperilled 


Jacques  Le  Fevre.  229 

his  life  at  Blois,  and  Le  Fdvre's  last  days  were  spent 
in  the  shelter  of  Nerac,  where  he  died  in  1536, 
without  ever  having  formally  separated  from  the 
Roman  Church,  but  in  essential  sympathy  with 
Protestantism. 

Thanks  to  the  seed  sowed  by  Le  Fdvre  and  the 
circulation  in  the  land  of  the  early  publications 
of  the  Saxon  reformers,  the  Evangelical  movement 
soon  gained  a  considerable,  though  scattered,  fol- 
lowing in  France.  But  the  government  gave  no 
reason  to  doubt  its  hostile  attitude.  Though  Fran- 
cis L  at  first  exercised  a  measure  of  toleration,  as 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  Le  Fevre,  he  soon  came  to 
treat  the  movement  as  one  involving  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  disorder.  Iconoclastic  outbreaks,  in  1528, 
strengthened  popular  antagonism  ;  and  though  the 
French  government  occasionally  modified  its  policy 
when  coquetting  for  political  advantage  with  the 
German  Protestants,  as  in  1532,  its  course  was  pre- 
vailingly one  of  severe  repression.  Met  by  a  perse- 
cution far  more  fierce  than  anything  Protestantism 
had  to  endure  in  Germany,  the  struggle  in  France 
assumed  a  bitterer  aspect  than  beyond  the  Rhine. 
The  vacillating,  but  ultimately  hostile,  attitude  of 
Francis  L  was  well  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Louis 
de  Berquin  (1490-1529),  a  nobleman  of  Artois.  A 
man  of  marked  piety  and  humanistic  reformatory 
spirit,  he  enjoyed,  soon  after  his  twentieth  year, 
the  personal  friendship  of  Le  F^vre  and  Marguerite 
d'Angouleme,  and  was  appointed  one  of  the  royal 
council.  Attracted  to  the  writings  of  Luther  and 
Melanchthon,  he  translated  one  of  Luther's  treatises 


230  The  Reformation. 

and  wrote  in  a  similar  spirit.  For  this  he  was  im- 
prisoned, in  1523,  by  the  Parlement  of  Paris,  the 
highest  civil  tribunal.  But  the  prompt  intervention 
of  Francis  I.  saved  him  from  condemnation.  Seized 
again  in  1526,  he  was  once  more  rescued  by  the 
king,  who  this  time  wrote  in  De  Berquin's  favor 
from  his  Spanish  imprisonment.  In  1529,  De  Ber- 
quin  was  for  the  third  time  arrested,  and  was  con- 
demned to  the  stake.  Francis  now  declined  to  in- 
terfere, and  De  Berquin  died  by  fire  at  Paris  on 
April  17th.  When  a  noble  was  thus  dealt  with, 
humbler  heretics  could  expect  little  tolerance. 

While  the  Reformation  spread  thus  in  certain  cir- 
cles in  France  during  the  third  and  fourth  decades 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  was  in  French  Switzer- 
land that  it  first  became  dominant,  and  from  that 
vantage-ground  outward  that  its  greatest  influence 
on  France  itself  was  ultimately  exerted.  The  man 
who  first  planted  the  Evangelical  doctrines  in  French 
Switzerland  was  Guillaume  Farel  (1489-1 565).  Born 
of  a  prominent  family  at  Gap,  he  studied  at  Paris 
under  Le  F^vre  and  taught  in  the  College  of  Car- 
dinal le  Moine.  With  the  permission  of  Bishop 
Bri^onnet,  he  began  preaching  in  the  diocese  of 
Meaux  in  1521,  but  his  fiery  nature  and  violent  de- 
nunciations led  the  bishop  to  withdraw  his  license  in 
1523,  and  Farel  soon  fled  for  safety  to  Basel.  Here, 
though  favorably  received  by  CEcolampadius,  he 
found  an  enemy  in  Erasmus,  and  was  expelled  from 
the  city.  Strassburg  was  next  the  scene  of  his 
turbulent  career,  and  from  there  he  journeyed  to 
Switzerland,  settling,  in   1526,  at  Aigle,  in  French- 


Far  el,    Vii^et  and  Froment.  231 

speaking  Vaud,  then  part  of  the  territories  of  Berne. 
With  the  victory  of  Protestantism  in  Berne,  in 
the  public  disputation  of  January,  1528,  in  which 
Zwingli,  CEcolampadius  and  Bucer  took  part,  Farel 
received  a  roving  commission  as  a  reformatory 
preacher  from  the  Bernese  government,  and  at  once 
set  himself  to  proclaiming  Evangelical  opinions  in 
the  French-speaking  territories  under  Bernese  in- 
fluence. There  was  a  storm  everywhere  he  went, 
but  he  met  much  success.  He  preached  the  Ref- 
ormation at  Lausanne,  Orbe,  Avenches,  and,  with 
special  effectiveness,  at  Neuchatel.  He  visited  the 
Waldenses  of  Piedmont,  and  brought  them  into 
connection  with  the  Reformation  movement.  And 
among  the  friends  and  associates  whom  he  inter- 
ested in  these  strenuous  labors,  two  were  conspicu- 
ous, Pierre  Viret  (1511-71)  and  Antoine  Froment 
(1508-81). 

Viret,  though  a  native  of  Orbe  in  Switzerland,  had 
studied  at  Paris,  and  there  had  come,  it  seems  prob- 
able, under  Evangelical  influence.  Returning  to 
Orbe,  he  was  there  aroused  by  the  fiery  Farel,  in 
1 53 1,  and  labored  with  much  success  in  his  native 
town,  though  his  largest  work  was  to  be  in  Lau- 
sanne (1536-59)  and  Geneva,  and  his  last  days 
were  to  be  spent  in  France  and  Navarre.  Froment 
was  from  the  same  district  of  France  as  Farel,  and, 
like  him,  acquainted  with  Le  F6vre  and  Marguerite 
d'Angouleme,  by  whom  he  was  befriended.  From 
1529  onward  for  a  number  of  years,  he  labored  to- 
gether with  Farel  in  the  same  missionary  enterprises, 
and  was  as  fearless  and  vigorous  as  he.     Ultimately 


232  The  Reformation. 

he  left  the  ministry  and  fell  into  disgrace  for  a  time. 
He  later  partially  recovered  his  good  name,  and  died 
a  notary  at  Geneva.  Farel,  Viret  and  Froment  it 
was  who  introduced  the  Reformation  into  the  most 
important  city  of  French  Switzerland. 

The  dawn  of  the  sixteenth  century  found  Geneva 
torn  by  factions  to  which  its  peculiar  mixed  govern- 
ment gave  ample  footing.  Its  highest  ruler  was  the 
bishop  of  the  city,  possessed  of  the  rights  of  taxa- 
tion, coinage  and  supreme  command  in  war.  Under 
him,  yet  appointed  by  the  neighboring  dukes  of 
Savoy,  was  the  vidame,  who  executed  legal  sen- 
tences and  had  a  minor  civil  and  criminal  jurisdic- 
tion. Besides  these  officers  there  were  four  "syn- 
dics "  and  a  treasurer,  not  appointed  by  the  bishop 
or  the  vidame,  but  chosen  by  the  citizens  (bour- 
geois), who  met  in  semi-annual  assembly,  and,  in  ad- 
dition to  choosing  these  officers,  made  certain  classes 
of  laws  and  treaties.  The  syndics  exercised  juris- 
diction in  all  capital  criminal  trials.  To  them  and 
to  the  treasurer  were  joined  twenty  citizens  as  the 
"Little  Council" — a  body  from  which  ultimately 
developed,  by  the  addition  of  the  chiefs  of  the  wards 
and  of  other  advisers,  a  second  assembly — the ' '  Coun- 
cil of  Sixty."  It  is  evident  that  such  a  system  had 
in  it  abundant  elements  of  dispute,  and  that,  aside 
from  divisions  among  the  citizens  on  other  ques- 
tions, three  parties  would  naturally  arise,  those  of 
the  bishop,  of  the  duke  of  Savoy,  and  of  the  cham- 
pions of  municipal  independence.  In  reality,  how- 
ever, the  interests  of  the  Savoy  and  of  the  episcopal 
parties M^ere  generally,  though  not  invariably,  united. 


Geneva.  233 

since  the  bishopric  was  held,  in  the  early  years  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  by  relatives  or  dependents  of 
the  house  of  Savoy.  Geneva  itself  bore  the  repute 
of  a  turbulent,  luxurious  and  pleasure-loving  city. 
The  dukes  of  Savoy  were  anxious  to  bring  it  more 
fully  under  their  control ;  but  certainly  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  bishopric  of  John,  "the  Bastard  of 
Savoy, "  in  1 5 1 3 ,  a  considerable  party  of  the  citizens 
of  Geneva,  led,  till  his  execution  in  15 19,  by  Phili- 
bert  Berthelier,  by  his  companion  and  successor, 
Besangon  Hugues,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  by  Frangois 
Bonivard  (the  "Prisoner  of  Chillon  "),  strove  with 
varying  success  for  independence  from  Savoy  and 
for  confederation  with  the  neighboring  Swiss  can- 
tons. After  tedious  struggles,  a  league  was  formed 
with  Freiburg  and  Berne  in  1526,  and  the  party  of 
municipal  liberty  attached  the  interests  of  the  city 
fully  to  those  of  Switzerland.  Berne  became  Prot- 
estant in  1528,  while  the  duke  of  Savoy  and  the 
bishop  of  Geneva  supported  Roman  interests. 
Hence  this  new  political  alliance  with  Freiburg  and 
Berne,  begun  without  thought  of  religious  modifica- 
tions, favored  the  introduction  of  the  Evangelical 
movement  into  Geneva  ;  and,  by  1530,  the  "  Coun- 
cil of  Two  Hundred,"  which  had  been  established 
at  the  beginning  of  the  alliance,  in  imitation  of  the 
constitution  of  the  northern  Swiss  cantons,  was  in- 
clined to  reform  measures.  In  June,  1532,  that 
council  ordered  the  vicar-general  of  the  diocese  to 
see  that  the  Gospel  was  preached  in  its  purity.  But 
the  Roman  party  was  still  strong,  and  it  was  not  till 
Qctober,  1532,  that,  on  the  arrival  in  Geneva  of  the 


234  1^^^^  Reformation. 

fiery  Farel,  Protestantism  was  powerfully  repre- 
sented. Conflict  followed  immediately.  Farel  had 
to  leave  the  city ;  but  Froment  continued  his  work. 
Yet  he,  too,  had  soon  to  flee,  and  though  Geneva 
now  contained  many  sympathizers  with  the  new 
views,  the  Roman  party  held  the  upper  hand  for 
some  months  longer.  But  Bernese  influence  se- 
cured protection  for  the  reformed  party  in  1533,  and 
Farel  renewed  his  labors,  supported  by  the  able 
Viret.  Public  worship  after  the  new  order  was  first 
conducted  on  March  i,  1534,  by  Farel.  In  July 
and  August,  1535,  the  innovators  felt  strong  enough 
to  take  possession  of  the  principal  Genevan  churches, 
and  on  the  27th  of  the  month  last  mentioned  the 
Council  of  Two  Hundred  forbade  the  mass.  Further 
reformatory  measures  were  enacted  in  May  of  the 
following  year  by  which  the  abolition  of  the  older 
ecclesiastical  system  was  completed.  Few  cities 
could  have  been  less  adapted  than  Geneva,  however, 
to  the  strenuous  moral  and  spiritual  discipline  which 
Farel  and  Viret  attempted  to  introduce.  A  stormy 
municipal  republic,  led  to  alliance  with  the  move- 
ment for  radical  religious  reform  by  political  con- 
siderations rather  than  profound  religious  convic- 
tions, and  noted  for  its  license  of  life,  Geneva  was 
easily  aroused,  but  with  difficulty  controlled,  by 
Farel.  Farel  knew  his  limitations  well ;  and,  in 
July,  1536,  his  almost  prophetic  declaration  of  what 
he  believed  to  be  God's  will  enlisted  in  the  work  of 
Genevan  reformation  the  services  of  a  passing  French 
refugee — the  ablest  organizer  and  profoundest  theo- 
logian that  the  Reformation  produced — John  Cal- 


Calvms  Early  Life.  235 

vin.  With  the  coming  of  Calvin,  Farel's  own  sig- 
nificance in  the  Franco-Swiss  reform  movement  soon 
became  secondary,  though  he  continued  to  be 
strongly  influential.  Banished  from  Geneva  in  1538 
with  Calvin,  he  labored  at  Neuchatel,  which  con- 
tinued to  be  the  main  scene  of  his  activities  till  his 
death  in  1565,  though  his  restless  nature  led  him  to 
interrupt  his  Neuchatel  ministry  by  reformatory 
preaching  in  Metz,  Gap,  and  many  other  places. 

John  Calvin  was  born  on  July  10,  1509,  in  the 
little  episcopal  city  of  Noyon  in  Picardy,  about  sev- 
enty miles  northeast  of  Paris.  His  father,  Gerard 
Cauvin,  was  secretary  to  the  bishop  of  Noyon 
and  fiscal  agent  for  the  district — a  position  which 
brought  the  family  prominent  acquaintances  and  an 
honorable  and  well-to-do  station  ;  but  led  G6rard, 
about  the  time  that  John  was  seventeen,  into  finan- 
cial irregularities,  and  ultimately  to  excommunica- 
tion, as  a  consequence  of  a  dispute  over  accounts 
with  the  cathedral  chapter.  How  far  Gerard  may 
have  been  blameworthy  is  still  a  debated  question, 
and  certainly  during  all  of  John's  boyhood  his  father 
stood  well  with  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  The 
mother  was  Jeanne  Lefranc,  a  woman  of  piety  ;  but 
her  influence  on  her  famous  son  was  slight,  as  she 
died  while  John  was  still  a  boy,  having  borne  her 
husband  two  daughters  and  four  sons.  Of  the  three 
sons  who  grew  to  man's  estate,  the  reformer  was  the 
second.  Religious  by  nature,  and  perhaps  by  his 
mother's  early  training,  his  ambitious  father  pro- 
cured for  the  boy  the  best  education  that  the  region 
and  the  time  could  offer.     His  first  schooling  he  en- 


236  The  Reformation. 

joyed  in  company  with  the  boys  of  the  family  of 
Montmor,  a  branch  of  the  prominent  noble  line  of 
Hangest,  and  to  this  happy  association  and  its  con- 
sequent friendships,  Calvin  owed  a  certain  grace  of 
manner  and  ease  of  social  bearing  which  the  more 
humbly  trained  reformers  generally  lacked.  Further 
and  more  advanced  instruction  than  Noyon  could 
afTord  was  expensive,  however,  and,  in  1521,  Gerard 
Cauvin  therefore  procured  for  his  twelve-year-old 
son  a  share  in  the  revenues  of  the  chapel  of  la  Gesine 
in  the  Noyon  Cathedral — an  ecclesiastical  holding 
which  was  increased  six  years  later  by  the  living  of 
St.  Martin  de  Marteville.  Such  holdings  were  then 
frequent  and  implied  no  pastoral  labor — the  ser- 
vices being  conducted  by  a  hired  priest  ;  and  the 
boy  who  held  them  had  advanced  no  further  on  the 
road  to  the  clerical  profession  than  the  reception  of 
the  tonsure. 

Thus  provided  with  funds,  Calvin  entered  the 
College  de  la  Marche  at  Paris,  with  his  friends  the 
Montmors,  in  August,  1523,  finding  his  lodging  in 
the  house  of  an  uncle.  In  the  college  he  came 
under  the  tuition  of  one  of  the  first  teachers  of  the 
age,  Mathurin  Cordier  (c.  1479-1564),  who,  though 
already  famous,  preferred  to  instruct  rudimentary 
classes,  that  his  students  might  have  the  better 
training.  To  Cordier,  Calvin  owed  the  thorough 
grounding  in  Latin  style  that  made  him  ready 
master  of  that  learned  tongue  to  a  degree  rarely 
attained  even  in  that  age  of  renascence  scholarship; 
and  to  Calvin,  Cordier  later  owed  in  turn  his  leader- 
ship of  the  schools  of  Protestant  Geneva,  Neuchatel 


Calvin  s  Edtication.  237 

and  Lausanne.  From  the  College  de  la  Marche 
Calvin  soon  passed  to  the  ascetic  and  strongly 
theologic  College  de  Montaigu,  a  little  later  to  be 
the  alma  mater  of  Ignatius  Loyola.  Here  his 
talents  in  dialectics  were  speedily  developed,  and 
here  he  studied  till  the  close  of  1527  or  the  begin- 
ning of  1528,  winning  for  himself  a  reputation  for 
marked  abilities,  for  a  strenuous  and  critical  moral- 
ity and  for  earnestness,  but  living  neither  as  a 
misanthrope  nor  as  an  ascetic,  as  has  often  been  rep- 
resented to  have  been  the  case. 

By  the  time  that  Calvin  was  completing  his 
studies  at  the  College  de  Montaigu  his  father  was 
entering  on  the  more  serious  stage  of  the  financial 
dispute  with  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  at  Noyon; 
and,  at  his  instance,  probably  agreeing  with  the 
young  man's  own  anti-ecclesiastical  inclinations, 
Calvin  turned  from  the  preparatory  studies  of  a 
theologic  course  to  those  leading  to  the  law,  and 
left  Paris,  the  home  of  theology,  for  Orleans  and 
Bourges.  At  Orl6ans  he  remained  from  about  the 
beginning  of  1528  to  the  spring  of  1529,  enjoying 
the  instruction  of  Pierre  de  I'Estoile,  when  desire 
to  hear  that  eminent  jurist's  great  rival,  Andrea 
Alciati,  drew  him  to  Bourges.  At  both  universities 
he  came  under  the  instruction  in  Greek  of  a  German 
Protestant  professor  of  eminence,  Melchior  Wolmar 
(1496-1561).  Some  time  in  the  winter  or  spring  of 
1 531,  Calvin  was  called  from  Bourges  to  Noyon  by 
the  illness  of  his  father,  and  after  his  father's  death, 
which  occurred  on  May  26,  he  turned  from  the 
study  of  law,  to  which  his  father's  desires  had  held 


238  The  Reformation. 

him,  to  that  of  the  classics  at  his  familiar  Paris. 
Francis  I.,  moved  by  the  new  learning,  had  estab- 
lished certain  "  royal  readers,"  who  represented  the 
new  humanistic  impulse  over  against  the  conserva- 
tism of  the  Sorbonne.  Under  Pierre  Danes  and 
Frangois  Vatable  of  this  new  foundation,  Calvin  now 
further  perfected  himself  in  Greek  and  Hebrew, 
cultivating  the  classics  assiduously  at  the  same 
time.  And  the  fruit  of  this  new  study,  the  first  of 
Calvin's  long  series  of  publications,  appeared,  in 
April,  1532,  in  his  Commentary  on  Seneca's  De 
dementia.  Many  have  sought  to  find  in  this  mar- 
vellously well-read  work  of  a  young  man  not  yet 
twenty-three  years  of  age  a  bold  protest  against  the 
intolerance  of  his  age.  With  equal  positiveness 
others  declare  it  to  be  a  purely  scholastic  humanis- 
tic treatise.  But  though  it  shows  no  sympathy 
with  the  Protestant  Reformation,  it  reveals  in  its 
author  a  remarkable  acquaintance  with  ecclesiastical 
as  well  as  with  classical  literature,  a  deep  sense  of 
human  sinfulness,  and  a  strenuous  morality.  A 
few  weeks  after  the  publication  of  this  treatise  saw 
Calvin  back  in  Orleans  for  a  stay  of  perhaps  a  year, 
and,  in  the  early  autumn  of  1533,  he  was  once  more 
in  Paris,  where  he  was  soon  to  take  a  step  that 
left  no  doubt  of  his  decided  Protestantism. 

No  question  in  Reformation  history  is  more  ob- 
scure than  that  of  the  circumstances  of  Calvin's  con- 
version. Regarding  his  own  spiritual  experiences, 
Calvin  was  always  loath  to  speak.  Even  his  friend 
and  biographer,  Beza,  appears  not  to  have  been 
thoroughly  informed,   and    to   have  attributed    to 


Calvin  s  Conversion.  239 

Calvin  an  Evangelical  activity  at  Orleans  and 
Bourges  of  which  there  is  no  contemporary  proof. 
The  eventful  years  of  Calvin's  student  life  were, 
however,  a  period  of  much  religious  discussion  in 
France.  In  1523,  the  year  in  which  he  entered  the 
College  de  Marche,  Le  Fevre's  Commentary  on 
the  Four  Evangelists  had  been  condemned  by  the 
Sorbonne,  and  Le  F^vre  himself  had  become  gen- 
eral-vicar of  Meaux.  Louis  de  Berquin's  tragic 
story  had  unrolled  itself  before  his  eyes  as  he 
studied  logic  in  the  College  de  Montaigu,  presided 
over  by  Berquin's  bitter  opponent,  Noel  Beda,  and 
began  acquaintance  with  law  at  Orleans.  His 
teacher,  Wolmar,  was  a  German  Protestant ;  his 
later  instructor,  Vatable,  was  a  disciple  of  Le 
F^vre  ;  his  relative,  Olivetan,  was  attached  to  the 
Evangelical  faith,  apparently  as  early  as  1528.  In 
1532  Calvin  himself  lodged  in  Paris  with  Etienne 
de  la  Forge,  a  prominent  adherent  of  Evangelical 
views,  who  was  burned  in  1535.  The  debates  and 
companionships  of  his  student  years  cannot  fail  to 
have  made  Calvin  well  acquainted  with  the  main 
points  at  issue  between  Catholicism  and  Protest- 
antism. 

But  when  Calvin  himself  became  a  Protestant  is 
still  a  disputed  question.  The  two  most  recent  in- 
vestigators of  this  problem,  Lang  and  Doumergue, 
take  incompatible  views,  the  former  holding  that  his 
acceptance  of  Protestantism  was  a  sudden  event, 
occurring  between  August  23  and  November  i,  1533; 
and  the  latter  that  it  was  a  gradual  process  essen- 
tially completed,  if  not  publicly  manifested,  some 


240  The   Reformation. 


months  earlier.  Calvin's  own  intimations  show  that 
the  process  was  one  of  struggle  and  of  sudden  and, 
he  believed,  divine  illumination.  It  seems  not  im- 
probable that  Calvin's  curious  and  active  spirit, 
trained  in  the  free,  critical  atmosphere  of  humanism, 
may  have  long  been  intellectually  familiar  with 
Evangelical  opinions,  and  in  a  measure  have  felt 
their  power,  but  may  have  yielded  full  submission 
to  them  suddenly  and  through  a  conviction  that  only 
in  so  doing  was  he  submitting  his  will  to  the  will  of 
God. 

Almost  equally  disputed  is  the  step  by  which  Cal- 
vin first  made  his  Protestantism  evident.  The  state- 
ment of  Beza,  accepted  by  his  latest  biographer,  and 
not  without  apparent  contemporary  confirmation,  is 
that  Calvin  prepared  for  his  friend,  the  physician, 
Nicholas  Cop,  who  was  chosen  rector  of  the  Paris 
University  in  October,  1533,  an  address  delivered  on 
November  i,  of  that  year,  in  which  Protestant  doc- 
trines were  boldly  advanced,  and  a  Protestant  cam- 
paign inaugurated.  The  discourse  which  has  come 
down  to  us  is  drawn  in  large  part  from  Erasmus  and 
from  Luther.  That  Calvin  thus  spoke  through  Cop 
seems,  on  the  whole,  the  more  probable  opinion  ; 
but  the  whole  story  has  been  disputed  by  historical 
critics  whose  views  are  worthy  of  respect,  and  it  is 
not  without  serious  difficulties.  Those  who  reject 
the  Cop  incident  would  see  in  Calvin's  resignation 
of  his  benefices  at  Noyon,  in  May,  1534,  his  definite 
adhesion  to  the  newer  beliefs. 

But,  whenever  and  however  Calvin's  conversion 
occurred,  it  involved  the  abandonment  of  brilliant 


Calvin  s  Conversion.  241 

prospects  for  the  life  of  a  fugitive  and  an  exile.  He 
was  not  long  without  experiencing  its  severity.  The 
same  month  that  he  resigned  his  benefices  he  was 
imprisoned  as  a  disturber  of  the  religious  peace  in 
his  native  city.  How  Calvin  spent  the  few  months 
between  November,  1533,  and  this  imprisonment  of 
May,  1534,  is  uncertain;  but  the  early  representa- 
tions seem  credible  that  he  had  to  leave  Paris  on 
account  of  the  excitement  aroused  by  Cop's  ad- 
dress. If  so,  he  may  well  have  spent  the  winter  of 
1533-34  in  the  hospitable  home  of  his  friend,  Louis 
du  Tillet,  canon  at  Angouleme  and  pastor  of  the 
neighboring  village  church  of  Claix.  Here  in  a  city 
which  enjoyed  the  protection  of  Marguerite  d'An- 
gouleme,  and  with  the  aid  of  Du  Tillet's  extensive 
library,  he  probably  sketched  out  the  first  draft  of 
the  Institutes.  And  from  Angouleme,  where  he  bore 
the  name  of  Charles  d'Espeville  for  protection,  he 
made,  probably  about  April,  1534,  a  flying  visit  to 
Nerac  to  see  the  aged  Le  F^vre,  before  going  to 
Noyon  to  resign  his  benefices  in  May.  Released 
from  an  imprisonment  at  Noyon  of  uncertain  length, 
he  went,  probably  for  the  second  time,  to  Angou- 
leme, though,  so  uncertain  is  the  exact  chronology 
of  this  portion  of  his  life,  that  this  may  have  been 
his  first  visit  thither  ;  and  from  Angouleme  he  ap- 
pears to  have  gone  for  a  brief  stay  to  Poitiers,  and 
thence,  late  in  1534,  to  the  familiar  Orleans.  There 
he  wrote  his  Psychopannychia,  to  deny  that  the  soul 
sleeps  between  death  and  the  resurrection — a  little 
tract  that  was  not  printed  till  eight  years  later.  But 
an  injudicious  attempt  to  advance  their  cause,  made 


242  The  Reformation. 

on  the  night  of  October  17,  1534,  now  rendered 
France  more  than  ever  a  difficult  country  for  the 
residence  of  Protestants.  Placards  denouncing  the 
mass,  prepared  by  the  intemperate  pen  of  Antoine 
Marcourt,  a  French  refugee  at  Neuchatel,  were 
aflfixed  to  the  blank  walls  of  Paris,  and  read  amid 
great  popular  excitement.  Francis  I.  was  enraged, 
the  more  so  that  one  of  the  placards  was  secretly 
affixed  to  the  door  of  his  bedchamber ;  and,  with 
his  approval,  persecutions  now  became  more  severe 
than  before.  A  public  procession  of  great  pomp 
was  held,  in  January,  1535,  to  expiate  the  scandal, 
and  many  Protestants  were  burned.  Yet  Francis 
wished  the  political  aid  of  German  Protestants,  and 
therefore  wrote  to  them  within  a  few  days  of  this 
procession  attempting  to  vindicate  his  course  as  due 
to  the  peculiarly  anarchistic  and  rebellious  character 
of  the  French  sympathizers  with  the  new  doctrines. 
A  few  months  later  Francis  carried  this  discrimina- 
tion between  French  and  German  Protestants  so  far 
as  to  urge  Melanchthon  to  come  to  Paris. 

This  sudden  storm  of  persecution  led  Calvin  to 
leave  France  with  Du  Tillet,  probably  in  February, 

1535,  He  journeyed  by  way  of  Strassburg  to  Basel. 
Settled  in  the  comparative  peace  of  a  Swiss  Prot- 
estant city,  under  the  protection  of  an  assumed 
name,  Martin  Lucanius,  Calvin  aided  Oliv^tan  by 
preparing  a  Preface  for  that  translator's  version  of 
the  Bible  ;  and,  what  was  vastly  more  important, 
he  finished  his  Institutes  in  August,  1535,  though 
they  were  not    issued  from   the  press  till    March, 

1536.  To  \\v&  Institutes  \i&  prefixed  a  noble  letter 


The  Institutes.  243 


addressed  to  Francis  I.,  but  designed  also  to  be  read 
by  the  German  Protestants  to  whom  the  French 
sovereign  had  so  grievously  slandered  the  French 
innovators,  presenting  with  great  beauty  of  style 
and  cogency  of  argument  the  purposes,  character 
and  faith  of  the  French  reformers.  This  master- 
piece of  defensive  literature,  and  the  no  less  remark- 
able theologic  treatise  to  which  it  was  prefixed,  gave 
a  European  significance  to  their  author,  who  counted 
but  twenty-six  years  when  he  wrote  them.  The 
Letter  foreshadowed  that  unquestioned  leadership 
among  French  Protestants  which  his  work  at  Ge- 
neva was  speedily  to  demonstrate.  The  Institutes 
gave  promise,  even  in  their  early  form,  of  a  dog- 
matic power  which  was  ultimately  to  rank  him  with 
the  few  great  theologians  of  Christendom. 

The  Institutes,  in  their  original  Latin  dress  of 
1536,  were  far,  indeed,  from  the  bulky  treatise  that 
Calvin  ultimately  made  them.  The  six  moderately 
extensive  chapters  of  1536,  on  Law,  Faith,  Prayer, 
True  Sacraments,  False  Sacraments  and  Christian 
Liberty,  form  a  compact  hand-book.  Calvin  worked 
upon  the  Instittites  all  his  life.  In  their  second  edi- 
tion, published  at  Strassburg  in  1539,  they  may  be 
said  to  have  attained  their  doctrinal  completeness  ; 
in  their  radical  revision  and  total  rearrangement  for 
the  edition  of  1559  they  reached  their  ultimate  logi- 
cal form.  The  ablest  doctrinal  treatise  that  the  Ref- 
ormation produced,  their  power  was  speedily  recog- 
nized by  friend  and  foe  alike.  No  theological  ex- 
position since  the  Sumnia  of  Aquinas  has  had  so 
profound  an  influence  or  gained  so  lasting  a  fame, 


244  '^^^^  Refor'fnation. 

The  Institutes  have  the  power  that  comes  from  in- 
tellectual grasp,  clearness  of  statement,  confidence 
of  conviction,  high-wrought  spiritual  earnestness, 
and  an  iron  cogency  of  logic  that  draws  its  conclu- 
sions resistlessly  once  its  premises  are  admitted. 
No  slight  attraction  toward  Calvin's  writings  lay  in 
the  vivacity  and  readableness  of  the  Latin  and  of 
the  French  garbs  in  which  he  clothed  them.  Cal- 
vin's work  was  never  obscure.  It  was  never  dry. 
And  his  Institutes  were  designed  for  the  general 
reader  no  less  than  for  the  technical  student  of  the- 
ology. 

While  Calvin's  theology  grew  in  the  range  of 
doctrine  treated  and  in  the  sharpness  with  which  his 
views  were  defined  and  logically  interlinked,  as  suc- 
cessive editions  of  the  Institutes  were  put  forth, 
unlike  the  theology  of  Melanchthon,  it  was  never 
essentially  modified,  and  most  of  its  later  character- 
istics were  already  apparent  in  the  edition  of  1536. 
Anything  like  a  synopsis  of  Calvin's  theology  is,  of 
course,  impossible  within  the  limits  of  this  chapter  ; 
but  four  of  its  salient  features  demand  at  least  a 
passing  glance  that  his  work  and  influence  may  be 
understood. 

In  his  presentations  of  Christian  truth, Calvin  stood 
on  the  general  platform  already  attained  by  the 
Protestant  leaders.  With  them  he  holds  that  the 
Bible,  which  he  views  as  attested  to  the  individual 
believer  by  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  is  the  only 
final  and  sufficient  authority.  With  them  he  re- 
gards justification  by  faith  as  the  sole  way  of  salva- 
tion.    With  them  he  maintains  that  the  only  priest- 


Calvins  Theology.  245 

hood  is  the  priesthood  of  all  believers,  and  that  all 
ministers  are  spiritually  equal.  With  them  he  de- 
nies the  sacrificial  character  of  the  mass  and  all  that 
is  connected  with  purgatory  and  a  treasury  of  good 
works.  But  while  thus  standing  on  the  common 
ground  that  the  Protestant  reformers  had  already 
reached,  Calvin  shows  strong  peculiarities  of  em- 
phasis and  individuality  of  presentation.) 

The  corner-stone  of  Calvin's  structure,  and,  ap- 
parently, the  pivotal  fact  of  his  religious  experience, 
was  the  sovereignty  of  God.  An  overwhelming 
sense  of  the  divine  majesty  and  of  the  duty  of  man 
to  submit  to  its  sway  stands  behind  all  his  argu- 
ment, ?  In  the  light  of  that  thought,  even  more 
than  was  the  case  with  Zwingli,  all  his  theology  was 
moulded.,;  .  That  sovereignty  has  its  chief  present 
manifestation,  as  far  as  the  destiny  of  the  human 
race  is  concerned,  in  election  and  reprobation,  both 
of  which  depend  on  the  sovereign  will  of  God.  Re- 
garding every  man,  God  has  from  all  eternity  a 
definite,  individual  and  unchangeable  purpose  of 
salvation  or  of  loss  ;  and  the  ultimate  reason  for 
that  purpose  in  any  particular  case  is  that  God  wills 
it  so  to  be.  This  strenuous  doctrine  was  presented 
in  a  comparatively  undeveloped  form  in  the  edition 
of  1536.  Election  was  dwelt  upon.  Reprobation, 
though  mentioned,  was  not  elaborated.  But,  as 
Calvin's  exposition  of  his  system  unfolded,  the 
theme  received  fuller  and  sharper  treatment.  There 
was,  probably,  nothing  more  strenuous  in  Calvin's 
doctrine  of  election  than  had  been  expressed  in 
^uther's  reply  to  Erasmus  or  in  Melanchthon's  ear- 


246  The  Reformation. 

Her  positions.  But,  as  was  already  said  of  Zwingli 
in  a  similar  connection,  the  emphasis  was  very  dif- 
ferent. With  Calvin  election  is  a  much  more  cen- 
tral doctrine  than  with  Luther  ;  while  Melanchthon 
in  his  later  theology  moved  in  a  direction  opposite 
to  that  which  Calvin  represented. 

Much  more  peculiar  to  Calvin,  though  not  so 
vital  to  his  system,  were  his  views  of  the  sacraments; 
and  especially  of  that  hotly  contested  point,  the 
nature  of  Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper.  On 
these  matters  the  edition  of  1536  presented  Calvin's 
essentially  completed  thought.  The  sacraments  he 
viewed  as  "witnesses  of  the  grace  of  God  declared 
to  us  by  external  symbols."  They  have  no  magical 
quality.  They  serve  to  confirm  God's  promises  to 
us.  .  In  regard  to  the  Supper,  Calvin  stood  between 
Luther  and  ZwingH,  holding  with  ZwingH  that 
Christ's  words,  "this  is  my  body,"  are  symboHc 
rather  than  literal,  but  inclining  strongly  to  sym- 
pathy with  the  Lutheran  emphasis  of  a  presence  of 
the  Lord  in  the  Supper.  That  presence — and  here 
Calvin  made  his  great  contribution  to  the  discussion 
— is  not  physical,  but  a  presence  of  spiritual  power, 
on  account  of  which  those  who  partake  of  the  Sup- 
per in  faith,  and  those  only,  receive  from  it  Christ's 
benefits. 

To  Calvin's  thought,  as  expressed  in  the  Insti- 
tutes of  1536  and  greatly  elaborated  in  their  later 
editions,  the  holy  Catholic  Church  is  "the  whole 
number  of  the  elect."  This  conception  of  the  true 
Church  as  in  the  last  analysis  the  invisible  Church, 
Calvin  shared  with  Wiclif,  Huss  and  Zwingli.     But 


Calv^:ns  Theology.  247 

while  the  elect  constitute  the  Church  known  to 
God,  outside  of  which  there  is  no  salvation,  the 
Church  as  known  to  man's  imperfect  discrimination 
is  the  visible  association  composed,  to  quote  Calvin's 
expression  of  1559,  of  those  "who  by  confession  of 
faith,  regularity  of  conduct  and  participation  in  the 
sacraments,  unite- with  us  in  acknowledging  the  same 
God  and  Christ."  That  visible  Church,  fellowship 
with  which  is  essential  to  the  Christian  hfe,  is 
marked  by  soundness  in  doctrine,  discipline  and  sac- 
raments. But  while  the  whole  number  thus  united 
are  the  visible  Church  universal,  those  grouped 
in  particular  villages,  towns  or  countries  are  also 
fittingly  spoken  of  as  churches  and  possess  a  govern- 
mental unity.  The  proper  officers  of  these  churches, 
Calvin  taught,  certainly  from  1541  onward,  are  those 
designated  by  Christ  and  the  apostles.  They  are 
pastors  and  teachers  whose  work  may  be  expressed 
as  that  of  the  pastoral  office,  lay  elders  to  assist  in 
discipline,  and  deacons  to  care  for  the  poor.  En- 
trance on  the  ministry  is  by  a  twofold  call — an  in- 
ward impulse  toward  the  office  and  an  invitation  from 
the  Church.  As  early  as  1536,  Calvin  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  regarding  the  summons  of  the  Church 
which  he  expressed,  in  1559,  ^s  follows: 

"  Ministers  are  legitimately  called  according  to 
the  Word  of  God,  when  those  who  may  have  seemed 
fit  are  elected  on  the  consent  and  approbation  of 
the  people.  Other  pastors,  however,  ought  to  pre- 
side over  the  election,  lest  any  error  should  be  com- 
mitted by  the  general  body  either  through  levity  or 
bad  passion  or  tumult.' 


248  The  Refor7nation. 

The  effect  of  this  doctrine  of  the  right  of  the  local 
congregation  to  share  in  the  choice  of  its  minister, 
and  hence  of  his  responsibility  to  it,  has  been  incal- 
culable in  the  development  of  popular  liberty.  Lu- 
ther early  abandoned  a  somewhat  similar  position 
for  dependence  upon  princes.  The  Anglican  Ref- 
ormation of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  had  no 
room  for  such  a  principle.  But,  like  Zwingli's 
thought  which  Calvin  made  his  own,  that  obedience 
ceases  when  rulers  command  anything  contrary  to 
God,  this  vigorous  and  practical  assertion  of  the 
rights  of  the  Christian  congregation  has  proved  one 
of  the  great  seed-contributions  to  political  and  re- 
ligious freedom.  For  the  argument  lies  near  at  hand 
that  if  ministers  are  chosen,  then  they  are  responsi- 
ble to  those  by  whom  they  are  elected.  And  if 
spiritual  rulers  are  responsible  to  those  whom  they 
serve,  why  not  temporal  magistrates,  even  kings? 
Calvin  himself  did  not  draw  these  conclusions  in 
their  fulness  ;  but  what  his  lessons  taught,  English 
Puritanism  and  Scotch  Presbyterianism,  no  less  than 
the  Protestantism  of  France  and  of  Holland,  were  to 
show. 

To  Calvin's  thought,  though  not  always  in  his 
Genevan  practice.  Church  and  State  are  independ- 
ent, yet  in  harmonious  cooperation.  The  civil 
ruler's  first  duty  is  to  aid  the  Church,  and  to  pre- 
serve its  purity  even  by  the  punishment  of  heretics 
and  other  offenders  ;  but  the  Church  is  not  subject 
to  him.  Calvin's  position  herein  was  more  that  of 
the  Roman  Church  than  that  of  any  other  of  the 
reformers  ;  but  his   congregations  were  republican 


Calvin  s   Theology.  249 

bodies, Jn  the  government  of  which  laymen  fully- 
shared.  \ 

The  mention  of  discipline  as  one  of  the  marks  of 
the  Church  calls  attention  to  a  fourth  peculiarity  of 
Calvin's  teaching — the  emphasis  which  he  laid  on  the 
cultivation  and  enforcement  of  a  strenuous  morality. 
In  Calvin's  thought  the  elect  are  not  merely  called 
to  forgiveness,  they  are  "called  unto  holiness." 
The  natural  man  cannot  of  himself  do  good  works — 
he  is  totally  depraved  ;  but  the  renewed  man  must 
do  good  works  by  the  power  of  God's  grace  working 
in  him.  As  Calvin  expressed  the  thought  in  his 
edition  of  1559,  "we  are  justified  not  without,  and 
yet  not  by,  works. '"'■, Here,  again,  the  difference 
between  Calvin  and  Luther  is  one  of  emphasis  ;  but 
it  is  a  difference  of  great  consequence.  .Tn  Luther's  ''^ 
thought,  good  works  are  the  spontaneous  outflowing 
of  justification  by  faith.  To  Calvin,  justification  and 
regeneration  are  more  separated,  though  intimately 
related,  experiences.  The  new  life  of  regeneration 
is,  more  than  in  Luther's  conception,  a  life  of  strug- 
gle and  of  conscious  effort  for  holiness.  Hence 
Calvin  laid  greater  weight  on  the  "Law"  than 
Luther  ;  holding  as  strenuously  as  the  great  Wit- 
tenberg reformer  that  our  salvation  is  of  grace  and 
not  by  conformity  to  its  precepts  ;  but  emphasizing 
the  value  of  the  moral  Law  as  a  guid^  to  Christian 
conduct  much  more  than  Luther  did.  Ml^rom  1536 
onward,  Calvin  saw  in  this  regulative  and  instructive 
use  of  the  Law  by  those  already  Christians  its  chief 
value.  Enforcing  thus  the  necessity  of  a  strenuous 
morality,  Calvin  emphasized  the  worth  of  church- 


250  The   Reformation. 

censures  ;  holding  it  to  be  a  prime  duty  of  the 
Church  to  discipline  offenders  for  their  own  good 
and  that  of  the  Church  itself,  ^^iscipline,  he  taught, 
is  one  of  the  chief  gifts  entrusted  to  the  Church  for 
the  training  of  its  members.  Discipline  became, 
therefore,  in  a  much  higher  degree  than  in  the  Lu- 
theran Churches,  a  characteristic  of  those  that  bore 
Calvin's  impress.; 

,  (In  Calvin's  system  the  individualism  of  the  Ref- 
prmation  age  attains  its  fullest  and  most  logical 
Expression.  Salvation  or  loss  is  taught  to  be  based 
i)n  an  individual  relationship  to  the  plan  of  God.") 
Calvin's  doctrine  seems  "  hard  "  to  much  of  the 
thinking  of  our  own  age.  It  did  to  his.  But  it  is 
only  historic  justice  to  point  out  that  the  lessons 
which  Calvin  and  those  who  accepted  his  theology 
drew  from  it  were  those  of  encouragement  rather 
than  of  supineness  or  despair.  He,  most  thoroughly 
of  all  the  reformers,  taught  the  Protestants  what  to 
answer  to  the  Catholic  claim  that  religion  is  largely 
a  corporate  matter,  and  that  outside  the  visible 
Roman  Church  there  is  no  salvation.  Such  an 
answer  as  his  the  hard-pressed  Protestants  of  France 
needed.  To  an  Evangelical  believer  of  Amiens  or 
of  Paris,  living  among  a  people  that  wished  his 
physical  death  and  that  believed  and  tried  to  impress 
upon  him  that  by  separating  himself  from  the 
ancient  communion  he  had  doomed  himself  to  death 
eternal,  the  thought  must  have  come  as  an  unspeak- 
able strength  and  consolation  that  God  had  had  a 
plan  for  him,  individually,  from  before  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world  ;  that  God  had  chosen  him  to  life  j 


Calvin  s  Theology.  251 

that  the  whole  power  of  God  was  behind  him  ;  and 
that  nothing  that  any  man,  be  he  priest  or  magis- 
trate, could  do  could  frustrate  the  divine  purpose  in 
his  behalf.  Similarly,  too,  Calvin's  theology  taught 
its  disciples  the  lesson  of  individual  responsibility 
for  a  strenuous  moral  life  as  no  other  presentation 
of  Christian  truth  had  yet  done.  It  emphasized 
character  in  an  age  that  needed  men  of  strength.  If 
its  beauty  and  sweetness  were  sacrificed  to  its  force, 
as  they  undoubtedly  were,  it  nerved  strong  men  for 
battle  when  conflict  was  the  duty  of  the  hour. 

About  the  time  that  the  first  edition  of  the  Insti- 
tutes was  coming  from  the  press,  in  the  spring  of 
1536,  Calvin  made  a  rapid  journey  to  Italy,  in  order 
to  advance  the  cause  he  had  at  heart  by  making  the 
acquaintance  of  a  French  princess  of  Evangelical  in- 
clinations— a  sympathizer  with  Le  Fevre  and  Mar- 
guerite d'Angouleme — Renee,  duchess  of  Ferrara. 
The  friendship  thus  begun  resulted  in  a  life-long  re- 
ligious correspondence.  After  a  brief  stay  at  Fer- 
rara, shortened  perhaps  by  inquisitorial  opposition, 
Calvin  hastened  secretly  to  Noyon,  whence  he 
speedily  set  out,  accompanied  by  his  brother,  An- 
toine,  and  his  sister,  Marie,  intending  to  make  a 
home  for  them  and  for  himself  in  Strassburg  or 
Basel.  Warlike  threatenings  between  France  and 
Germany  barred  the  direct  route  ;  and  in  July,  1536, 
Calvin  was  halted  in  his  journey,  as  already  narrated, 
by  Farel  while  passing  through  Geneva,  and  per- 
suaded by  Farel's  adjurations  and  warnings  against 
his  scholarly  reluctance  that  God  had  called  him  to 
take  up  the  active  duties  of  a  reformer  in  the  turbu- 


252  The  Reformation. 

lent  little  city-republic,  that  then  numbered  not  far 
from  twelve  thousand  inhabitants.  At  Calvin's 
coming,  the  ancient  Church  had  already  been  done 
away  by  the  citizens  under  Farel's  leadership,  and 
the  city  government  had  entered  into  full  control  of 
Genevan  ecclesiastical  afTairs.  It  had  ordered  at- 
tendance on  sermons  under  penalty  of  banishment 
and  suppressed  all  religious  days  except  Sunday  ; 
but  these  external  changes  were  about  the  extent  to 
which  the  Genevan  Reformation  had  attained. 

Calvin's  work  began  modestly  at  Geneva.  He 
held  no  ofifice  at  first ;  but  served  as  Farel's  assist- 
ant, expounding  the  Scriptures  in  lectures  of  great 
popular  success  in  the  cathedral.  But  Farel  and 
Calvin  were  determined  to  organize  Geneva  into  a 
church  under  strict  discipline,  rather  than  leave 
affairs  to  the  direction  of  the  magistrates  ;  and,  in 
November,  1536,  they  submitted  to  the  city  coun- 
cils a  Confession  of  Faith  and  a  Catechism  for  indi- 
vidual adoption  by  all  the  citizens.  The  election  in 
February,  1537,  favored  the  reformers,  and,  in  July 
following,  the  citizens,  in  groups  of  tens,  were  re- 
quired to  assent  to  the  Confession,  the  penalty  for 
refusal,  as  defined  in  November  of  that  year,  being 
banishment.  Meanwhile,  about  the  beginning  of 
1537,  Calvin  had  been  appointed  by  the  city  govern- 
ment one  of  the  three  city  pastors,  the  others  being 
Farel  and  a  blind  old  French  refugee,  of  burning 
eloquence — a  former  monk,  Elie  Corault  (?-i538). 
Under  the  new  r6gime  discipline  was  strongly  en- 
forced. Men  were  appointed  by  the  magistrates  in 
each  section  of  the  city  to  watch  over  morals,  while 


Beginnings  at  Geneva.  253 

churchly  censures  and  civil  punishments  were 
threatened  to  offenders.  Several  severe  cases  of 
punishment  occurred  for  what  had  heretofore 
scarcely  been  regarded  as  offences.  At  the  same 
time  the  schools  were  bettered,  attendance  made 
compulsory,  and  public  worship  improved. 

These  strenuous  changes,  introduced  by  three 
ministers,  no  one  of  whom  had  lived  long  in  the  city, 
naturally  aroused  a  storm.  The  first  attack  was 
from  without,  when,  in  February,  1537,  Pierre  Car- 
oli,  a  French  refugee  pastor  at  Neuchatel,  who  was 
ultimately  to  return  to  the  Roman  Church,  charged 
the  Genevan  ministers  with  Arianism,  since  they 
had  avoided  the  words  "  Trinity  "  and  "  person  " 
in  the  Confession  for  the  sake  of  simplicity,  and  re- 
fused to  sign  the  damnatory  Athanasian  Creed.  A 
vigorous  defence  by  Calvin  refuted  the  charge  in  the 
judgment  of  a  synod  held  at  Lausanne  and  of  the 
Bernese  authorities,  as  well  as  of  the  Strassburg 
reformers. 

Far  more  serious  was  the  disaffection  in  Geneva 
itself.  Many  refused  to  bind  themselves  by  the 
Confession,  which  seemed  to  some  of  the  most  re- 
spected citizens  a  severer  bondage  than  that  from 
which  the  city  had  escaped  in  throwing  off  the  yoke 
of  the  bishop.  The  election  of  February,  1538,  was 
carried  by  the  disaffected,  though  Protestant,  ele- 
ment. Calvin  and  Farel's  discipline  could  not  be 
enforced.  And  the  party  opposed  to  them  was 
strengthened  by  the  countenance  of  Berne,  the  gov- 
ernment of  which  powerful  and  aggressive  canton 
now  insisted  that  such  minor  changes  in  public  wor- 


254  1^^^^  Reformation. 


ship  should  be  made  at  Geneva  as  would  bring  it 
into  conformity  with  the  Bernese  observances.    The 
Genevan  authorities  supported  the  Bernese  requests. 
But  Calvin  and  his  associated  ministers  would  not 
admit  the  right  of  the  civil  government  to  regulate 
the  Genevan  Church  at  its  pleasure.     There  was  a 
higher  law  than   that   of  magistrates— the  Word  of 
God.     Corault  was  forbidden  by  the  government  to 
preach  by  reason  of  his  plain-speaking,     Calvin  and 
Farel  refused  to  celebrate  the  communion  by  rites 
imposed  simply  by  civil  authority,  though  Calvin  at 
least  seems  to  have  regarded  the  Bernese  rites  as  in- 
different in  themselves.     As  a  consequence   of  this 
refusal,  they  were  banished  in  accordance  with  votes 
passed  on  April  22  and  23,  1538,  by  the  councils  of 
Sixty  and  Two  Hundred  and  the  general  assembly 
of  citizens.     Calvin  and  Farel  had  failed  to  estab- 
lish the  Genevan  Church  as  an  independent  spiritual 
power  side  by  side  with  the  civil  government.     The 
latter  had  asserted  its  superiority.     In  so  doing,  it 
had    followed    the    usage    of    all    German-speaking 
Protestantism.     Farel  resumed  his  ministry  at  Neu- 
chatel.     Calvin  went  to  Strassburg. 

For  Calvin's  larger  work  this  banishment  was  a 
great  advantage.  The  still  youthful  reformer  needed 
time  for  study  and  acquaintance  with  a  wider  circle. 
At  Strassburg  he  found  both.  He  revised  and  re- 
issued his  Instit2ites  in  1539.  He  defended  the  Evan- 
gelical movement  in  a  letter,  that  became  one  of  the 
classics  of  Protestantism,  addressed  the  same  year  to 
the  humanistic  and  moderate  bishop  of  Carpentras, 
Cardinal  Jacopo  Sadoleto  (1477-1547),  who  tried  to 


Calvin  at  Strassburg.  255 

win  Geneva  back  to  the  Roman  allegiance.  He  be- 
came intimately  acquainted  with  the  Strassburg  re- 
formers, Bucer,  Capito  and  Hedio  ;  and  was  one  of 
the  representatives  of  his  adopted  city  in  the  debates 
held  at  Worms  and  Regensburg,  in  1540  and  1541, 
when  Charles  V.  was  endeavoring  to  secure  some 
peaceful  basis  of  compromise  between  Catholics  and 
Protestants.  In  these  assemblies  he  met  the  leaders 
of  German  religious  thought,  with  the  exception  of 
Luther,  and  formed  a  warm  and  enduring  friendship 
with  Melanchthon. 

Calvin's  sojourn  at  Strassburg  was  marked  by 
his  marriage,  in  August,  1540,  to  a  French-speaking 
widow  from  the  Netherlands,  like  him  an  exile  for 
conscience's  sake — Idelette  de  Bure — "a  grave  and 
honorable  woman,"  as  Beza  describes  her.  Of  his 
married  life  we  know  little,  though  enough,  in  spite 
of  Calvin's  habitual  reserve,  to  see  that  it  was  help- 
ful and  happy  in  the  companionship  of  husband  and 
wife.  But  the  marriage  was  not  of  long  duration. 
The  wife,  who  was  something  of  an  invalid,  died  in 
March,  1549.  The  only  child,  a  son,  had  been 
taken  away  in  infancy.     Calvin  never  married  again. 

Though  honored  at  Strassburg,  Calvin's  life  there 
was  one  of  great  pecuniary  limitation.  But,  as  al- 
ways, he  was  an  indefatigable  worker.  In  January, 
1539,  he  became  assistant  professor  of  theology. 
He  gathered  a  congregation  of  French  refugees,  to 
which  he  ministered  as  pastor,  and  over  which  he 
exercised  a  strenuous  discipline  ;  and  for  this  con- 
gregation he  prepared  a  liturgy,  which  became,  with 
some  modifications,  the  liturgy  of  Geneva  after  his 


256  TJie   Reformation. 

return,  and  thus  the  model  for  many  churches.  The 
characteristic  features  of  Calvin's  liturgy  are  that  it 
made  the  sermon  central,  as  in  the  Lutheran  and 
Zwinglian  forms  of  worship,  but  agreed  with  Zwingli 
in  rejecting  the  ceremonies  which  Luther  had  re- 
tained, and  with  Luther  in  developing  congrega- 
tional singing,  which  Zwingli  rejected.  At  the  com- 
munion service  the  prayers  were  wholly  liturgical. 
But  in  ordinary  Sunday  worship  a  place  was  pro- 
vided for  free  prayer  before  the  sermon,  while  the 
other  prayers  were  written.  The  service  opened  with 
prayers  of  invocation  and  confession  ;  followed  in 
order  by  the  singing  of  a  psalm,  an  extempore  prayer, 
the  sermon,  an  extensive  liturgical  prayer,  some- 
times another  psalm,  and  always  a  benediction. 
The  familiar  order  of  public  worship  in  the  non- 
liturgical  churches  of  England  and  America  is  de- 
rived from  the  work  of  Calvin,  who,  in  turn,  built  to 
some  extent  on  the  labors  of  the  Protestant  reform- 
ers who  had  preceded  him. 

Meanwhile,  affairs  had  gone  badly  at  Geneva  for 
Calvin's  opponents.  Though  the  city  was  still 
strongly  Protestant,  the  ministers  were  incompetent 
to  manage  its  turbulent  ecclesiastical  condition,  and 
the  submission  to  Berne  shown  by  the  party  which 
had  driven  Calvin  forth  proved  very  unpopular. 
Calvin's  reply  to  Cardinal  Sadoleto  and  his  kindly 
bearing  toward  Geneva  won  him  friends.  The  tide 
turned  in  his  favor,  and,  in  October,  1540,  the  Coun- 
cils of  Sixty  and  of  Two  Hundred  and  the  general 
assembly  of  Genevese  citizens  invited  Calvin  to  re- 
turn.    Calvin  hesitated.     He  knew  the  burdens  of 


Calvin s  Return  to  Geneva.  257 

the  task  to  which  he  would  have  to  set  himself. 
But  he  was  finally  convinced  that  it  was  God's  call ; 
Geneva  pressed  it ;  Farel  and  his  friends  urged  ;  and 
in  September,  1541,  he  was  back  in  Geneva,  honored 
by  the  city  government,  and  granted  a  house,  to- 
gether with  what  for  the  time  was  a  handsome  sti- 
pend. 

Calvin  returned  practically  on  his  own  terms.  He 
was  determined  that  a  real  theocracy — that  is,  a 
Church  ruled  wholly  by  the  law  of  God  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  Scriptures — should  be  erected  at 
Geneva.  That  Church  should  be  coextensive  with, 
but  not  identical  with,  the  civil  community.  He 
made  it  a  condition  of  his  return  that  the  Genevese 
people  should  swear  "  to  hold  to  the  Catechism  and 
to  discipline" — that  is,  that  they  should  put  them- 
selves under  the  doctrine  and  government  of  the 
Church.  The  Genevan  faith  was  expressed  in  a  new 
Catechism  from  Calvin's  pen,  issued  in  1542,  which 
had  great  influence  wherever  the  Calvinistic  sys- 
tem found  sympathizers.  The  same  year  saw  Ge- 
nevan worship  remodelled  in  accordance  with  Cal- 
vin's liturgy. 

But  the  most  important  of  these  series  of  eccle« 
siastical  modifications  which  marked  Calvin's  return 
to  Geneva  was  the  establishment  of  his  system  of 
government  and  discipline  by  the  Ordinances  eccle- 
siastiqiies,  prepared  by  Calvin  and  his  associated  min- 
isters,  with  the  aid  of  six  sympathetic  laymen  o{ 
the  Genevan  councils ;  and  adopted,  with  some 
modifications,  as  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  of 
the  Genevan  Church  by  the  several  political  bodies 


258  The  Reformation. 

in  which  the  citizens  were  grouped,  in  November, 
1 541.  This  remarkable  constitution  can  be  under- 
stood only  in  the  light  of  Calvin's  emphasis  on  dis- 
cipline as  essential  to  Christian  nurture  and  on  the 
right  of  the  laity  to  share  in  church-government. 
in  accordance  with  the  views  already  expressed  by 
Calvin  in  the  Institutes  as  to  the  proper  officers  of 
the  Church,  the  Ordinances  provided  for  pastors, 
teachers,  elders  and  deacons.  Calvin,  together  with 
four  other  ministers,  like  him  of  French  birth,  and 
three  clerical  assistants,  constituted  the  pastors. 
Teachers  of  theology  were  reckoned  as  properly  of 
the  teaching  office.  The  elders  were  twelve  laymen 
chosen  by  the  smallest  council,  and  representative 
of  that  body  and  of  the  Councils  of  Sixty  and  of 
Two  Hundred.  In  their  appointment  thus  by  the 
State,  instead  of  by  the  religious  community,  there 
was  certainly  a  departure  from  the  theories  of  the 
Institutes  and  the  practice  of  pure  Presbyterianism  ; 
but  therein  was  only  one  of  a  number  of  conces- 
sions that  Calvin  was  compelled  to  make  to  that  de- 
sire for  state  control  over  the  Church  which  found 
full  play  in  most  Protestant  lands  and  had  driven 
him  from  Geneva  in  1538.  To  the  deacons  was  as- 
signed the  care  of  the  poor  and  of  the  hospitals. 

Characteristic  of  Calvin's  organizing  genius  is  the 
further  grouping  of  these  officers  of  the  Genevan 
Church  for  administrative  efficiency.  The  pastors 
and  teachers  together  constituted  the  Vdndrable 
Compagnie,  by  which  doctrinal  questions  were  de- 
bated and  ministerial  candidates  nominated.  To 
enter  on  the  pastoral  office,  however,  the  further 


The  Genevan   Theocracy.  259 

approval  of  the  civil  authorities  and  the  silent  con- 
sent, at  least,  of  the  congregation  to  be  served  were 
requisite.  More  influential  in  the  popular  life  of 
Geneva  than  this  Venerable  Coinpagnie  was  the  Con- 
sistoire,  composed  of  the  ministers  and  of  the  twelve 
lay  elders.  This  body,  meeting  every  Thursday, 
under  the  presidency  of  one  of  its  lay  members, 
was  charged  with  the  administration  of  Calvin's  be- 
loved discipline,  and  constituted  a  veritable  spiritual 
police.  It  possessed  the  power  of  house-to-house 
visitation  ;  and  though  the  Consistoire  had  no  au- 
thority whatever  to  inflict  other  than  spiritual 
punishments,  Geneva,  under  Calvin,  had  so  far  in- 
herited the  mediaeval  idea  that  the  State  should  co- 
operate with  the  Church  in  maintaining  the  religious 
purity  of  the  community,  that  whoever  was  seriously 
dealt  with  by  the  Consistoire  was  almost  certain  to 
feel  the  heavy  hand  of  civil  authority.  Character- 
istic of  the  mediaeval  ideas  which  were  long  to  sur- 
vive the  Reformation  was  it  also  that  the  civil  au- 
thorities, no  less  than  the  Consistoire,  felt  obligated 
to  punish  errors  in  belief  as  well  as  crimes  in  conduct. 
And  under  Calvin's  influence  such  punishments 
were  of  great  severity.  Not  only  were  torture  and 
espionage  employed  by  the  civil  authorities,  but 
offences  such  as  heresy  and  treason  were  grouped 
together  as  worthy  of  death  by  fire,  blasphemy  and 
adultery  as  of  less  severe,  but  still  capital  punish- 
ment ;  while  neglect  of  public  worship,  luxury  in 
apparel,  gambling  and  dancing  were  all  severely 
dealt  with.  Nor  were  these  statutes  any  idle 
threats.      Between    1542    and    1546    no    less    than 


26o  The  Reformation. 

fifty-eight  persons  were  executed  and  seventy-six 
banished  from  the  little  city. 

These  results  were  the  work  of  Calvin's  iron  will ; 
and  never  was  there  a  more  conspicuous  illustration 
of  the  power  of  leadership.  Calvin  held  no  civil 
office  ;  he  did  not  even  become  a  citizen  of  Geneva 
till  1559.  He  was  not  even  president  of  the  Consis- 
toire,  of  which  he  was  a  member.  He  was  simply 
one  of  the  pastors.  His  authority  was  that  of  a 
recognized  expounder  of  the  Word  of  God  in  a  city 
which  he  had  persuaded  to  regard  that  Word  as  the 
final  authority.  His  power  was  the  might  of  per- 
suasion, of  intellectual  masterfulness,  of  will  ;  but 
he  ruled  as  few  sovereigns  have  done.  His  control 
was  the  more  absolute,  because  it  was  not  self- 
seeking,  but  the  authority  of  one  who  was  firmly 
convinced  that  what  he  stood  for  was  God's  law, 
and  the  critics  of  his  doctrine  whom  he  opposed  as 
relentlessly  as  the  vicious  and  the  criminals  were, 
like  the  latter,  enemies  of  God.  Yet  Calvin  was  no 
fanatic  ;  he  had  his  distinct  ideal  of  a  well-ordered, 
thoroughly  disciplined,  doctrinally  united  Christian 
community  clearly  in  view,  and  he  determined 
with  adamantine  firmness  to  make  Geneva  its  liv- 
ing embodiment.  No  man  ever  had  the  material 
and  intellectual  welfare  of  the  community  in  which 
he  lived  more  continually  in  view  than  he.  By 
1544,  his  vigorous  leadership  had  introduced  weav- 
ing, especially  of  silk-goods,  which  speedily  proved 
a  great  industrial  advantage  to  the  city  ;  while  his 
care  for  popular  education  was  such  that  he  has  been 
called,  though  the  description  does  injustice  to  the 


The  Genevan  Theocracy.  261 

services  of  other  leaders  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
"the  father  of  common-schools."  These  educa- 
tional and  industrial  advantages  worked  together 
with  religious  sympathy  to  draw  hundreds  of  exiles 
for  conscience's  sake  to  the  city.  Between  1549 
and  1554  no  less  than  thirteen  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  foreigners,  mostly  of  French  extraction,  made 
Geneva  their  home.  Many  of  them  were  of  learn- 
ing, ability  and  position  ;  and,  as  a  whole,  they 
constituted  an  addition  to  the  strength  and  industry 
of  the  community  of  which  any  city  might  be 
proud.  The  facts  that  Geneva  under  Calvin's  domi- 
nance enjoyed  an  increasing  commercial  prosperity, 
an  improved  system  of  education,  a  European  influ- 
ence and  repute  such  as  its  citizens  had  never  before 
dreamed,  and  an  augmenting  population,  go  far  to 
explain  the  support  which  Calvin  enjoyed,  while 
they  distinguish  his  work,  even  from  its  material 
side,  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  Reforma- 
tion age. 

Calvin's  work,  however,  was  met,  as  one  would 
expect,  by  strenuous  opposition.  His  severe  disci- 
pline and  the  growing  influence  of  foreigners  aroused 
the  hostility  of  many  of  the  old  Genevan  famiHes, 
while  honest  disbelievers  in  his  doctrines  and  radical 
sects  which  the  Reformation  movement  drew  in  its 
train  added  their  weight  to  the  forces  that  he  had 
to  overcome.  The  hostility  of  the  party  of  old 
Geneva  is  readily  understood.  Its  motive  was  not 
enmity  to  Protestantism,  but  to  Calvin's  discipline 
and  supporters  ;  and  it  aimed  to  assert  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  civil  government,  which  this  party  for 


r 


262  The   Reformation. 

several  years  controlled,  over  the  Church,  and,  there- 
by, to  drive  Calvin  from  the  city,  as  in  1538.  The 
most  conspicuous  representatives  of  this  old  Genevan 
spirit  were  Ami  Perrin,  the  captain-general ;  Pierre 
Vandel,  a  man  to  whom  any  strict  moral  discipline 
was  irksome  ;  and  Philibert  Berthelier,  son  of  the 
Genevan  patriot-martyr  of  the  same  name  who  had 
given  his  life  for  Genevan  liberty  in  15 19.  Perrin 
had  sought  Calvin's  return  to  the  city  in  1541,  and 
had  been  a  participant  in  the  preparation  of  the 
Ordinances  ecclesiastiques ;  but  a  strenuous  process 
of  discipline  directed  against  him  and  his  household, 
in  1546,  turned  him  into  Calvin's  most  embittered 
political  opponent.  Perrin  and  his  friends  gained  a 
strong,  and  it  often  seemed  a  preponderating, 
influence  in  the  city  councils  by  the  election  of  1547 
and  retained  it  till  1554.  They  sought  to  take  the 
power  of  excommunication  from  the  Consistoire,  and 
to  prevent  the  admission  of  foreigners  to  citizenship 
or  to  the  right  to  bear  arms.  In  all  this  they  were 
for  a  time  measurably  successful.  Calvin's  position 
was  for  several  years  one  of  great  difficulty.  His 
life  was  threatened,  his  work  denounced.  Only  his 
dominant  personality  at  times  saved  him.  But 
when  the  scale  gradually  turned  in  Calvin's  favor, 
and  the  reformer  sought  to  strengthen  his  grasp  by 
admitting  many  of  his  foreign  supporters  to  Genevan 
citizenship,  in  1555,  Perrin  and  his  friends  resorted 
to  violence,  and  were  condemned  to  death  by  the 
victorious  party  of  Calvin — a  fate  which  most  of 
them  escaped  by  a  flight  that  made  them  exiles 
and  left  Calvin,  from  1555  to  the  close  of  his  life, 
practically  undisputed  master  of  Geneva. 


Struggle  for  Mastery.  263 

Had  the  opposition  to  Calvin's  theocracy  been 
simply  that  of  representatives  of  old  Genevan 
tradition,  it  would  have  been  far  less  serious  than 
that  which  he  actually  overcame.  But  religious 
views,  inimical  alike  to  Protestantism  and  to  the 
Roman  system  which  it  had  replaced,  worked  in  the 
city,  were  stimulated  by  opposition  to  Calvin's 
discipline,  and  reinforced  the  party  which  sought  to 
drive  him  from  power.  The  Spirituels,  or  Libertines, 
of  whom  something  more  will  be  said  in  a  later 
chapter,  were  pantheistic  mystics,  who  viewed  per- 
sonality as  a  mere  passing  manifestation  of  the  one 
God,  who  is  all  and  does  all.  Sin  had,  for  them,  no 
real  existence  ;  and  salvation  or  forgiveness  they 
conceived  as  simply  the  recognition  that  all  actions, 
whether  men  call  them  good  or  bad,  are  simply 
God's  work.  These  views  were  widely  spread  in 
France,  and  by  1545  at  least  were  efficiently  repre- 
sented in  Geneva,  though  not  by  any  means  all  to 
whom  the  name  Libertine  was  attached  shared 
them.  Anything  more  antagonistic  to  Calvin's 
strenuous  morality  would  be  hard  to  conceive  ;  but 
they  found  considerable  acceptance  with  that  ele- 
ment of  the  Genevan  population  that  viewed  the 
Reformation  as  nothing  but  a  rejection  of  ecclesi- 
astical tutelage.  The  Libertines  and  the  party  of 
old  Geneva,  of  which  mention  has  just  been  made, 
were  by  no  means  identical ;  but  they  worked 
together  in  a  common  effort  to  secure  Calvin's 
overthrow.  In  Jacques  Gruet,  however,  both  ele- 
ments of  opposition  were  represented.  Of  an  ancient 
Genevan    family,  he  was   a  "  free-thinker"  in  the 


264  The  Reformatio7i. 


modern  sense,  who  seems  to  have  been  the  author 
of  a  bitter  attack  upon  Calvin  in  an  anonymous 
writing  placed  on  Calvin's  pulpit  in  June,  1547. 
His  private  papers,  on  search,  showed  him  to  doubt 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  ultimately  revealed 
after  his  death  that  he  had  adopted  a  position  of 
antagonism  to  Christianity.  Not  only  Calvin,  but 
the  more  conservative  of  his  opponents,  saw  in 
Gruet  a  man  for  whom  death  was  esteemed  the  only 
fitting  punishmen*- ;  and  he  was  beheaded  on 
July  26,  1547. 

Calvin  had  serious  conflict  also  with  far  more  wor- 
thy doctrinal  opponents  than  Gruet,  and  these  dis- 
putes form  some  of  the  most  melancholy  pages  in 
his  history.  Of  these,  the  three  most  important 
may  be  mentioned — those  with  Castellio,  Bolsec 
and  Servetus. 

S6bastien  Castellio,  or  Chatillon  (1515-63),  was  a 
young  Savoyard  humanist  whom  Calvin  had  met  at 
Strassburg  in  1540,  had  taken  into  his  house,  and 
had  led  to  Protestantism.  On  Calvin's  return  to 
Geneva,  he  had  procured  for  the  scholarly  and  con- 
scientious Castellio  the  headship  of  the  Genevan 
school.  But  the  teacher  seems  to  have  been  of  a 
rationalist  and  critical  spirit  unusual  in  his  age ; 
and  by  1544  he  had  excited  Calvin's  fears  by  the 
expression  of  an  opinion  that  Solomon's  Song  was 
not  divinely  inspired — a  view  which  seemed  to  the 
Genevan  leader  an  attack  on  divine  revelation.  With 
this,  he  coupled  a  criticism  of  Calvin's  teachings  on 
predestination  and  interpretation  of  the  article  in 
the  Apostles'  Creed  which  affirms  Christ's  descent 


Castellio  and  Bolsec.  265 

into  hell.  The  resultant  discussions  led  Castellio  into 
an  attack  on  the  Genevan  ministers  as  proud,  worldly 
and  intolerant,  and  compelled  him  to  leave  the  city. 
Calvin,  to  his  honor  be  it  said,  gave  the  exile  a  let- 
ter testifying  to  his  faithfulness  in  ofifice.  But  he 
was  to  have  in  Castellio  a  persistent  opponent  and 
critic,  who  assailed  his  employment  of  force  in  mat- 
ters of  belief  with  no  less  energy  than  his  theories 
of  predestination. 

Even  more  positive  in  his  attack  upon  Calvin,  and 
especially  upon  Calvin's  doctrine  of  predestination, 
was  Jerome  Hermes  Bolsec  (?-i584),  once  a  Carmel- 
ite monk  at  Paris,  but  settled,  about  1 5  50,  as  a  Protes- 
tant and  a  physician  at  Veigy,  near  Geneva.  A 
natural  controversialist,  he  censured  Calvin's  views 
on  election  and  reprobation  in  private  and  in  pub- 
lic and  brought  on  himself  the  condemnation  of  the 
V^n^rable  Compagnie.  He  charged  Calvin,  then  in 
the  stress  of  his  contest  for  the  mastery  of  the  city, 
with  misrepresentation  of  the  Bible  and  with  mak- 
ing God  the  author  of  sin.  Such  a  charge  struck 
at  the  basis  of  Calvin's  only  authority — that  of  an 
expounder  of  the  Word  of  God.  The  Genevan  civil 
government  took  up  the  case  and  consulted  the 
other  churches  of  Switzerland.  Though  their  ver- 
dict was  not  nearly  as  condemnatory  as  Calvin 
wished,  it  had  sufficient  weight,  coupled  with  the 
influence  of  the  Genevan  pastors,  to  secure  Bolsec's 
banishment  in  December,  1551.  He  continued  as  a 
Protestant  for  some  years,  but  his  reputation  was 
not  of  the  best.  He  ultimately  returned  to  the 
Roman  communion,  and,  in  1577,  took  his  revenge 


266  The  Reformation. 

on  the  then  thirteen  years'  deceased  Calvin  in  a 
scandalous  biography  charging  the  Genevan  reformer 
with  heinous  moral  turpitudes  in  early  life,  which, 
though  absolutely  without  foundation  in  fact,  have 
been  repeated  by  the  less  scrupulous  of  his  critics 
to  within  recent  years. 

More  notorious  as  well  as  more  severe  was  Cal- 
vin's treatment  of  Servetus — perhaps  the  most  de- 
bated episode  in  all  Reformation  history.  Miguel 
Serveto  (1509,  15 11  ?-i553)  was  a  Spaniard  by  birth, 
who,  though  educated  for  the  law  at  Toulouse,  won 
chief  fame  as  a  physician,  and  seems  to  have  been 
the  discoverer  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  A 
man  of  great  speculative  gifts  and  restless  spirit,  he 
was  a  radical  of  the  radicals;  and,  in  1531,  when 
but  little,  if  at  all,  over  twenty  years  of  age,  he 
published  an  elaborate  work  On  the  Errors  of  the 
Trinity,  in  which  he  anticipated  not  only  much  that 
Socinianism  afterward  asserted,  but  some  specula- 
tions widely  entertained  in  our  own  century.  The 
book  made  him  a  marked  man  ;  but  for  a  number 
of  years  after  its  publication,  he  devoted  himself  in 
France  to  scientific  researches  and  the  practice  of 
medicine,  sheltered  under  the  assumed  name  of 
Villeneuve.  He  lived  at  Vienne  from  1540  to  1553. 
Here  he  speedily  began  a  doctrinal  correspondence 
with  Calvin,  who  at  first  treated  him  with  courtesy, 
but  to  whom  he  replied  with  much  arrogance,  so  that 
the  Genevan  divine  at  last  became  thoroughly  in- 
censed at  his  denial  of  the  Trinity  and  rejection  of 
infant  baptism,  and  expressed  the  opinion  to  Viret, 
in  a  letter  of  1546,  that  "should  Servetus  come  to 


Serve  tus.  267 

Geneva,  he  would  not  leave  alive,"  if  he,  Calvin, 
could  prevent.  At  Vienne,  probably  as  early  as  1 546, 
Servetus  wrote  his  Restitution  of  Christianity,  which 
he  published  in  1553.  This  remarkable  volume  pre- 
sented with  greater  maturity  the  thoughts  of  his 
Errors  of  the  Trinity,  and  wove  them,  with  other 
views,  into  something  like  a  system  which  the 
author  believed  to  be  a  restoration  of  primitive 
Christianity.  On  the  basis  of  an  essentially  panthe- 
istic view  of  God,  he  taught  that  Christ  was  truly 
the  Son  of  God,  that  all  the  Godhead  was  corpo- 
really manifested  in  Him,  but  that  His  personality 
was  not  preexistent  save  in  the  mind  of  God,  and 
really  began  with  His  earthly  conception  and  birth. 
To  Servetus's  thinking,  the  Nicene  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Chalcedonian  Christology  and  infant 
baptism  were  the  three  chief  sources  of  churchly  cor- 
ruption. And  his  views  were  the  more  irritating  to 
the  orthodoxy  of  the  sixteenth  century — whether 
Catholic  or  Protestant — because  of  the  overbearing, 
contemptuous  and  self-confident  tone  in  which  he 
always  uttered  them. 

The  Restitution  of  Christiafiity  had  just  passed 
quietly  through  the  press,  when  a  Genevan  disciple 
of  Calvin,  Guillaume  Trie,  a  former  resident  of 
Lyons,  stung  by  the  taunt  of  a  Catholic  correspond- 
ent that  Geneva  was  ill  disciplined,  replied  that  it 
was  not  Geneva  but  Catholic  France  that  tolerated 
blasphemers,  and  called  attention  to  the  unsuspected 
Villeneuve  as  in  reality  the  detested  Servetus  and 
the  author  of  the  anonymous  Restitution.  How 
far  Calvin  was  responsible  for  the  initiation  of  this 


268  The  ReforMaiion. 

attack  is  still  a  question  in  debate  ;  but  Servetus 
had  corresponded  with  him  about  the  Restitution 
and  had  sent  him  a  draft  of  it,  and  Trie  must  have 
got  his  facts  directly  or  indirectly  from  Calvin.  The 
Catholic  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  took  up 
the  case  promptly,  and,  in  part  on  the  strength  of 
letters  of  Servetus  obtained  from  Calvin  through 
Trie,  condemned  the  Spanish  physician  to  death  by 
slow  fire. 

Before  condemnation  had  been  reached  by  his 
judges,  however,  Servetus  escaped  from  Vienne  in 
April,  1553,  and  came,  of  all  places,  to  Geneva — an 
act  for  which  no  fully  satisfactory  reasons  appear. 
He  was  just  on  the  point  of  leaving,  after  a  month's 
stay,  when  he  was  recognized,  August  13,  1553,  and, 
at  Calvin's  instigation,  thrust  into  prison.  The 
moment  was  one  of  the  intensest  in  Calvin's  strug- 
gle with  the  old  Genevan  and  Libertine  parties,  and 
to  a  certain  extent  Servetus's  fate  became  a  question 
to  test  Calvin's  own  grasp  on  Geneva.  But  Calvin 
was  moved  by  other  motives  deeper  than  the  main- 
tenance of  his  rule.  He  believed  Servetus  a  most 
dangerous  heretic,  the  representative  of  that  Italian 
anti-Trinitarianism  which  he  regarded  as  one  of  the 
great  perils  of  the  Reformation.  He  held,  also, 
that  Servetus  denied  the  full  authority  of  the 
Bible — to  do  which,  to  Calvin's  thinking,  was  to  at- 
tack the  basis  of  all  authority.  And  so  Calvin 
soon  came  to  urge  Servetus's  death.  A  curious 
and  pitiful  struggle  now  occurred.  The  poor  pris- 
oner, knowing  that  Calvin's  enemies  were  striving 
for  the  mastery  of  Geneva,  finally  demanded  that 


Serve  tus.  269 

Calvin  be  condemned,  "exterminated,"  and  his 
goods  handed  over  to  himself.  But  Calvin's  ene- 
mies did  not  dare  really  to  support  so  notorious  a 
heretic  as  Servetus.  They  simply  made  Calvin  all 
the  trouble  they  could.  Instead  of  condemning 
Servetus  promptly,  as  he  and  the  Genevan  minis- 
ters desired,  they  consulted  the  other  Swiss  Protes- 
tant cantons  ;  and  when  the  answers  proved  unfa- 
vorable to  the  prisoner,  they  condemned  him  to 
death  at  the  stake  instead  of  the  milder  execution 
which  Calvin  preferred  for  him.  On  October  27, 
1553,  Servetus  died  a  martyr's  death,  lectured  by 
Farel,  but  unshaken  in  his  convictions  to  the  last. 
The  sixteenth  century  was  not  the  nineteenth,  and 
nowhere  is  its  unlikeness  more  apparent  than  in 
this  melancholy  story.  Though  a  few  voices,  like 
that  of  Castellio,  were  raised  in  protest,  the  opinion 
of  the  Christian  world  as  a  whole  was  that  Geneva 
had  done  well.  Even  as  sweet-spirited  a  man  of 
peace  as  Melanchthon  praised  the  sentence. 

Harsh  and  sometimes  unjust  as  was  Calvin's  dis- 
cipline, it  is  but  fair  to  remember  that  it  appears  a 
larger  incident  in  his  work,  viewed  by  our  retro- 
spective vision,  than  it  really  was,  and  that  our 
peaceful  times  are  not  like  the  stormy  decades  in 
which  Calvin  labored.  One  asks  for  efficiency 
rather  than  for  amenities  from  a  commander  in  bat- 
tle. None  could  doubt  Calvin's  efficiency.  Geneva 
grew  in  population,  wealth,  industry,  reputation  and 
influence  under  him.  Nor  was  his  work  efficient 
alone.  For  one  who  suffered  under  the  severe  ex- 
ercise of  what  he  considered  Christian  discipline, 


270  The  Reformation. 

but  which  our  age  looks  back  upon  with  aversion  as 
savoring  of  spiritual  tyranny,  many  greeted  the  city 
which  he  made  a  refuge  for  harassed  French  Prot- 
estantism, as  did  more  than  once  rejoicing  French 
exile,  kneeling  and  praising  God,  or  felt  with  John 
Knox  that  the  orderly,  sober,  industrious  Geneva  of 
Calvin's  later  years  "  was  the  most  perfect  school  of 
Christ  that  ever  was  in  the  earth  since  the  days  of  the 
Apostles."  Their  approval  may  seem  to  us  unwar- 
ranted ;  but  it  must  be  recognized,  if  we  are  to 
gauge  Calvin's  influence  aright. 

And  Calvin  himself,  however  occupied  he  might 
be  with  Genevan  affairs,  never  regarded  Geneva  as 
more  than  a  vantage  point  from  which  the  rest  of 
Europe  might  be  reached  with  the  Evangelical 
Reformation.  His  attentive  care  took  in  the  whole 
range  of  the  movement  in  the  non-Lutheran  lands, 
and  his  influence  knit  together  the  scattered  Protes- 
tant forces  outside  of  Germany  into  a  compact  and 
sympathetic,  if  not  organically  united  party.  Calvin 
was  a  Frenchman,  and,  outside  of  Geneva,  France 
was  the  first  object  of  his  care.  He  made  the 
Genevan  Academy  a  training  school  for  French  min- 
isters. He  wrote  the  treatises  that  French  Protes- 
tants most  read.  He  did  a  service  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  French  language  second  only  to  that  of 
Luther  for  the  German  tongue.  He  stamped  his 
character  and  his  theology  on  the  Huguenots  of 
France,  and  so  encouraged  and  directed  them  that, 
in  1559,  they  gathered  in  a  national  synod  at  Paris, 
where  they  adopted  the  strongly  Calvinistic  Con- 
fession, in  the  preparation  of  which  Calvin's  pupil, 


Calvin s  Influence.  271 

Antoine  de  la  Roche  Chandieu  (c.  1534-91)  bore 
an  eminent  part — a  Confession  that  with  some 
sHght  modifications  remained  the  creed  of  French 
Protestantism  till  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
same  synod  organized  the  French  Huguenot  Church 
on  Presbyterian  lines  drawn  essentially  from  Calvin's 
Institutes,  yet  more  democratic  than  the  Genevan 
constitution,  and  gave  it  a  discipline  of  Calvinistic 
rigor.  Till  his  death,  Calvin  was  the  director  and 
the  inspiring  force  of  the  Protestantism  of  France. 

Calvin's  influence  was  scarcely  less  felt  in  the 
Netherlands,  Scotland  and  England.  He  welcomed 
their  exiles.  He  interested  himself  in  their  affairs. 
He  stamped  his  theology  and  his  conceptions  of  dis- 
cipline and  of  church-organization  on  the  thinking 
of  the  Dutch,  the  Scotch,  and  the  Puritans  of  Eng- 
land. The  doctrinal  basis  of  the  Church  of  Holland, 
the  Belgic  Confession,  prepared  in  its  original  form 
by  Guy  de  Bray  (1522-67)  in  1561,  no  less  than  the 
Confession  which  was  given  to  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land by  Calvin's  friend  and  disciple,  John  Knox,  and 
his  associates  in  1560,  were  purely  Calvinistic,  and 
the  discipline  of  the  churches  which  they  served 
was  modelled  of  the  principles  of  the  Institutes. 
The  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  EngHsh  Church  show 
plain  evidence  of  Calvin's  thought;  and  his  histi- 
tutes  were  studied  and  valued  by  Anglicans  and 
Puritans  alike  under  the  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

Calvin's  influence  penetrated  Zwinglian  Switzer- 
land more  slowly.  Indeed  he  himself  long  felt 
more  closely  related  to  the  Lutheran  than  to  the 
Zwinglian  Reformation.     Ziirich  disapproved  of  his 


272  The  Reformation. 

doctrine  of  the  Supper  as  too  Lutheran  ;  Basel 
disliked  his  emphasis  on  predestination  ;  Berne 
objected  to  his  theory  of  the  independence  of  the 
Church  of  State-control,  and  his  rejection  of  Bernese 
claims  over  Geneva.  But  gradually  Calvin's  power- 
ful influence  made  itself  felt  in  German  Switzerland. 
In  1549,  Calvin  and  Bullinger  of  Zurich  united 
regarding  the  Sacraments  in  the  Consensus  Tiguri- 
7ms  with  some  concessions  on  each  side  ;  and  this 
agreement  was  ratified  also  by  the  churches  of  Neu- 
chatel,  St.  Gall,  Schaffhausen  and  Basel.  With  this 
understanding  regarding  the  Supper  came  further 
approximations  of  the  French  and  German  Swiss 
churches,  though  Berne  never  became  friendly  to 
Calvin  while  he  lived,  and  the  intense  discipline  of 
Geneva  never  found  favor  where  the  population  was 
German-speaking. 

Though  in  Germany  itself,  hostility  to  Calvin, 
especially  on  account  of  his  theory  of  the  Supper, 
grew  more  bitter  till  it  culminated  in  the  stormy 
controversy  between  the  Genevan  reformer  and 
Joachim  Westphal  of  Hamburg  from  1552  to  1554, 
and  displayed  itself  in  the  long-continued  crypto- 
Calvinistic  controversies  within  the  borders  of 
Lutheranism,  Calvinism,  even  before  the  death  of 
its  leader,  won  decided  accessions  on  German  soil. 
Under  the  favor  of  Elector  Friedrich  III.,  Calvinism 
was  introduced  into  the  Rhenish  Palatinate,  and  in 
1563,  one  of  the  most  deservedly  valued  of  cate- 
chisms, as  well  as  one  of  the  most  effective  presen- 
tations of  the  more  moderate  aspects  of  Calvinism, 
was  issued  as  the  doctrinal  basis  of  the  electoral 


spread  of  Calvinism.  273 


territory.  The  Heidelberg  Catechism  was  the  work 
of  two  youthful  disciples  and  friends  of  Calvin  and 
Bullinger,  the  elder  of  whom  had  also  enjoyed  the 
instruction  and  confidence  of  Melanchthon,  Zach- 
arias  Ursinus  (Bar,  1534-83),  and  Caspar  Olevianus 
(Olewig,  1536-87),  whom  Elector  Friedrich  had 
summoned  to  his  service  in  the  University  and 
Court  of  Heidelburg.  Sweetest  and  most  experien- 
tial in  tone  of  any  of  the  Reformation  symbols,  it 
won  wide  approval  in  the  Calvinistic  churches,  was 
used  in  Scotland,  and  constitutes  to  the  present  day 
one  of  the  doctrinal  bases  of  the  Reformed  (Dutch) 
Churches  of  Holland  and  of  America,  and  the  creed 
of  the  Reformed  (German)  Churches  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Calvinism  made  further  inroads  on 
German  territory,  gaining  strong  footing  in  Nassau, 
Bremen,  Hesse,  and  Brandenburg,  within  half  a 
century  of  the  publication  of  the  Heidelberg  Cate- 
chism. This  further  growth  in  Germany,  all  of 
which  occurred  after  Calvin's  death,  was  much  aided 
by  the  fierce  attacks  of  the  strict  Lutherans  on  the 
Philippists,  and  German  Calvinism  did  not  develop 
those  disciplinary  features  that  marked  it  in  its 
Genevan  home  and  in  its  French,  Scotch,  EngHsh 
and  American  transplantation. 

This  wide-extended  influence  beyond  his  Genevan 
residence  implied,  whatever  may  have  been  the  self- 
propagating  force  of  his  opinions,  a  vast  breadth  of 
acquaintance  and  of  correspondence  on  the  part  of 
Calvin  himself.  He  advised  and  counselled  in  the 
affairs  of  the  scattered  reformed  bodies  of  western 
Europe ;    he   welcomed    exiles   for   their   faith   to 


274  T^^^  Reformation. 

Geneva;  from  1559  onward  for  half  a  century  his 
influence  when  living  and  the  foundations  which 
survived  him  rendered  the  Genevan  Academy  the 
leading  theological  school  of  non-German  Prot- 
estant Europe.  And  in  addition  to  all  these  labors, 
Calvin  found  time  for  exegetical  study  so  extensive, 
thorough  and  accurate  as  not  merely  to  cover  in  his 
series  of  commentaries  the  greater  part  of  the  Bible, 
but  to  place  him  easily  the  foremost  among  the 
expositors  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Calvin's  work 
in  the  pulpit  was  constant.  Every  other  week  it 
was  his  custom  to  preach  daily,  and  he  gave  a 
sermon  generally  every  Sunday.  Three  times  a 
week  he  lectured  on  theology  to  his  students. 

Such  a  burden  of  labor  was  the  more  remarkable 
because  borne  by  one  of  so  feeble  a  frame.  Even 
in  his  student  days,  Calvin's  health  suffered  from 
long  hours  of  study  and  scanty  sleep.  Ascetic  in 
habit,  partaking  for  years  of  but  a  single  meal  a 
day,  busied  every  waking  moment,  emaciated  and 
pale,  he  was  not  one  to  attract  men  to  his  person- 
ality as  did  Luther.  More  powerful  in  his  letters 
than  the  Wittenberg  reformer,  he  could  never  have 
given  to  his  friends  the  free,  far-ranging  table-talk 
that  Luther's  companions  treasured.  His  life  was 
burdened,  rather  than  limited,  by  ill-health.  His 
labors  wore  him  out  before  his  time  ;  and  he  died  at 
the  height  of  his  power  and  in  the  fulness  of  his 
mental  vigor,  but  broken  in  body  and  less  than 
fifty-five  years  of  age,  on  May  27,  1564. 

It  was  Calvin's  good  fortune  to  have  at  hand  a 
friend  and  fellow-laborer,  of  kindred  spirit,  if  not  of 


Calvin  and  Beza.  275 

equal  gifts,  to  whom  he  could  entrust  his  work — 
Theodore  de  Besze  (Beza).  Born  on  June  24,  1519, 
at  V6zelay  in  the  French  province  of  Burgundy,  of 
a  family  of  some  prominence  by  ancestry  and  by 
service  to  the  king,  Beza  was  left  motherless  at 
three,  but  was  brought  up  at  the  French  capital 
by  an  uncle  who  was  a  member  of  that  high  court 
of  justice,  the  Parlement  of  Paris.  From  1528  to 
1535,  during  the  very  years  that  Calvin  studied 
under  Melchior  Wolmar  at  Orleans  and  Bourges, 
the  boy  was  a  pupil  in  Wolmar's  family.  De- 
signed by  his  father  and  uncle  for  the  law,  he 
settled  after  graduation  at  Paris,  devoted  to  classical 
literature,  moving  in  fashionable  society,  and  win- 
ning fame  as  a  poet  of  talent.  Here  he  entered 
into  a  secret  marriage  with  a  young  woman  of 
humbler  birth,  Claudine  Desnoz,  and  lived  in  the 
worldly  fashion  of  his  time  and  class.  But  a  severe 
illness  awakened  his  conscience  and  his  latent 
Protestantism  ;  and,  in  1548,  he  betook  himself  to 
Geneva,  resolved  to  lead  a  new  life.  As  an  earnest 
of  his  new  intentions,  he  married  Claudine,  who  had 
fled  with  him,  publicly,  immediately  on  his  arrival 
at  Geneva.  After  some  uncertainty  as  to  what  he 
could  do  for  a  livelihood,  Beza  became,  at  Viret's 
entreaty,  professor  of  Greek  at  Lausanne — a  post 
which  he  held  from  1549  to  1558.  From  Lausanne 
he  came  to  a  similar  instructorship  at  Geneva  in  the 
year  last  mentioned  ;  and,  at  its  foundation  in  IS59> 
became  rector  of  the  Genevan  Academy  and  its 
professor  of  theology.  Thenceforward  Geneva  was 
his  home  till  his  death  on  October  13^   1605 — the 


276  The  Reformation. 

last  of  the  great  Protestant  reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century.     Beza  had  not  the  genius  of  Calvin,  but  he 
was  admirably  fitted  to  carry  on  that  forceful  re- 
former's work.      Under  him  the  Genevan  Academy 
flourished  and  attracted  students  of  theology  from 
all  western  Europe.      Under  him  the  study  of  law 
was  promoted  by  the  foundation  of   a  law  school 
and  the  services  of  eminent    instructors   in   juris- 
prudence.     Calvin's   theology,   as    taught    by   him, 
was  essentially  unchanged;  though  it  passed  through 
that  process  of  increasing  desiccation  and  rigidity 
which  usually  marks  the  transfer  of  a  system  from  a 
creative  mind  to  that  of  a  disciple  and  defender. 
And  Beza  had  much  of  Calvin's  wide-looking  eccle- 
siastical generalship,  also.     Till  years  and  feebleness 
limited  his  activities,  the  interests  of  the  Evangelical 
cause,  especially  in  France,  were  his  constant  care  ; 
and  many,  as  well  as  perilous,  were  the  journeys 
that  he  undertook  as  in  some  sense  the  bishop  of 
the    Huguenot    churches.      His    experience  of   the 
world,  his  gentleness  and  wit,  and  a  certain  courtly 
grace  of   manner  well  fitted  him  for  the  role  of  a 
mediator,   while  his  courage   and  conviction    made 
him    a    leader.      In    Beza,   Calvin's    work  lived  on, 
without  creative  genius,  indeed,   but  characterized 
by  the   same   ideals   that   kept  Geneva  a  centre  of 
learning  and  industry,  as  well  as  a  model  of  what 
Calvinistic  discipline  believed  that  a  Christian  com- 
munity  should    be,    and    made   the   heacj    of    the 
Genevan  Church  a  uniting  and  directing  influence 
among  the  widely  scattered  forces  of  Calvinism, 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   PROTESTANT  MOVEMENT  CARRIED   TO   OTHER 
COUNTRIES. 

HE  story  of  the  revolt  from  Rome  thus 
far  considered  has  been  that  of  the  Prot- 
estant revolution  in  the  lands  of  its 
origin,  Germany  and  Switzerland,  with 
a  glance  at  its  development  in  a  neigh- 
boring country,  France,  to  which  the  movement  was 
not  native,  indeed,  save  in  the  humanistic  type  of  a 
Le  F^vre,  but  which,  through  th-e  genius  of  Calvin, 
gave  to  it  a  peculiar  theological  and  disciplinary  de- 
velopment that  rendered  the  French  conception  of 
the  Reformation  no  less  influential  than  the  Ger- 
man. The  Protestant  revolt  spread  quickly  to  other 
lands  than  those  just  named  ;  but  everywhere,  save 
in  England  —  a  country  that  does  not  come  within 
the  scope  of  this  volume — either  the  type  of  Sax- 
ony or  of  Geneva  was  essentially  reproduced.  Yet 
in  each  country  which  Protestantism  penetrated 
there  were  local  variations  in  its  manifestation,  due 
to  political,  social  or  religious  conditions. 

First  in  point  of  time  of  gaining  possession,  as 
well  as  most  direct  in  its  connection  with  the  earli- 
est source  of  Protestantism — that  of  Wittenberg — 
was  tlje  Protestant  movement  in  the  Scandinavian 

?77 


278  The  Reformation, 

lands.  Nowhere,  not  even  in  England,  was  the  rev- 
olution more  intermingled  with  politics.  In  all  the 
Scandinavian  territories,  but  especially  in  Sweden, 
the  introduction  of  Protestantism  was  largely  gov- 
ernmental in  its  origin,  and  was  fostered  by  a  desire 
to  limit  the  powers  of  the  bishops  and  reduce  the 
land-holdings  of  the  Church  for  the  benefit  of  the 
crown.  In  Denmark  and  Sweden,  moreover,  the 
time  was  one  of  political  revolution.  As  com- 
pared with  that  of  Germany,  of  Switzerland,  or  of 
Scotland,  the  Scandinavian  Reformation  was  not  a 
popular  movement,  nor  one  involving  profoundly 
the  religious  feelings  of  the  people. 

Denmark,  Sweden  and  Norway,  at  the  opening  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  had  been  loosely  joined  for  a 
hundred  years  (since  1397)  in  a  single  monarchy.  In 
all  three  lands  the  Church  and  the  nobles  or  great 
landed  proprietors  were  able  to  limit  the  authority 
of  the  king  in  large  measure.  Late  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  Sweden,  under  the  lead  of  one  of  its  power- 
ful noble  families,  that  of  Sture,  had  practically 
rejected  the  rule  of  the  Danish  king,  though  Danish 
interests  were  vigorously  supported  by  the  bishops. 
Christian  II.  of  Denmark  (king  1513-23)  attempted 
to  enforce  the  royal  authority  in  Sweden.  An 
unsuccessful  effort  to  compel  Swedish  allegiance 
in  1 5 18  was  followed  by  a  more  fortunate  attack 
upon  Swedish  independence  in  1520;  but,  in  spite 
of  a  promise  of  amnesty  to  his  recent  opponents, 
Christian  II.  seized  and  executed  the  Swedish  patri- 
otic leaders  in  November  of  the  year  last  mentioned 
• — an  outrageous  breach  of  faith  which  is  called  the 


Sweden.  2  79 

"Stockholm  bath  of  blood."  Far  from  accomplish- 
ing Christian  II. 's  purpose,  this  massacre  of  the 
leaders  of  Sweden  only  intensified  Swedish  oppo- 
sition to  Danish  rule.  And,  at  this  juncture,  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  action  of  the 
Reformation  epoch,  a  young  noble,  related  to  the 
family  of  Sture,  Gustavus  Vasa  (Gustaf  Ericssen 
Wasa,  1496-1560),  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a 
Swedish  national  uprising,  defeated  the  Danes  at 
Westeras  in  April,  1521,  just  as  Luther  was  leav- 
ing Worms,  and  in  August  became  administrator 
of  the  land.  On  the  deposition  of  Christian  II.  by 
his  Danish  subjects,  in  1 523,  who  came  to  dislike  him 
almost  as  thoroughly  as  did  the  Swedes,  Gustavus 
was  given  the  title  of  king  by  a  Swedish  diet,  and 
with  him  began  a  royal  house  of  remarkable  talents, 
under  which  Sweden  was  to  gain  an  influence  hith- 
erto unimagined  in  European  affairs. 

This  thorough  political  revolution  led  to  the  im- 
mediate introduction  of  the  Saxon  type  of  reforma- 
tion into  Sweden.  Gustavus,  while  a  fugitive  from 
Christian  II.,  had  met  Luther,  with  whom  he  had 
begun  a  correspondence.  The  Swedish  bishops  had 
been  supporters  of  Denmark.  The  new  Swedish 
monarchy  must  increase  its  power  and  wealth  if  it 
was  to  become  independent  of  the  nobility,  and  the 
most  feasible  method  seemed  to  be  to  gain  posses- 
sion of  church-lands.  All  political  elements  of  the 
situation  conspired  with  the  personal  preferences  of 
Gustavus  to  render  a  revolt  from  Roman  authority 
desirable.  Lutheran  views  had  already  been  advo- 
cated in  Sweden  by  the   brothers  Olaf  (1497-1552) 


zSo  The  Reformation. 

and  Lars  (1499-1573)  Petersen,  both  of  whom  had 
studied  at  Wittenberg;  and  an  archdeacon  of  Streng- 
nas,  Lars  Andersen  (1480-1552),  of  great  executive 
talents,  had  already  been  won  for  the  new  opinions 
when  Gustavus  assumed  the  crown.  Yet  Gustavus 
moved  with  some  degree  of  moderation  at  first. 
While  the  papal  legate  was  won  for  the  king's  side, 
the  new  sovereign  supported  the  Lutheran  sympa- 
thizers. Andersen  was  made  chancellor  of  the  king- 
dom, Lars  Petersen  became  professor  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Upsala  in  1523,  and  Olaf  Petersen,  after 
holding  the  rectorship  of  the  academy  at  Strengnas, 
became  a  preacher  at  Stockholm.  With  royal  ap- 
proval, Olaf  Petersen  married  in  1525,  the  same  year 
as  Luther.  A  year  later,  a  translation  of  the  New 
Testament  into  Swedish  was  put  forth  by  Andersen 
and  the  Petersens. 

But  it  was  not  till  Clement  VIL's  quarrel  with 
Charles  V.  that  Gustavus  deemed  the  time  fully  ripe 
to  break  with  Rome.  After  a  public  discussion  of 
the  main  points  in  dispute,  in  which  Olaf  Petersen 
championed  the  Protestant  cause,  Gustavus  forced  a 
national  diet  at  Westeras  in  1527,  under  threats  of 
his  own  abdication,  to  submit  the  Church  to  his  rule, 
to  surrender  the  episcopal  castles  and  the  monas- 
teries to  him,  to  put  the  disposition  of  Church  rev- 
enues into  his  hands,  and  to  allow  the  free  exercise 
of  Lutheran  worship  The  consent  of  the  nobles  to 
these  high-handed  confiscations  was  won  by  the 
release  to  them  of  all  lands  that  the  Church  had  re- 
ceived from  them  since  1454.  Gustavus  followed 
this  victory  by  dividing  the  larger  bishoprics  and 


Sweden.  281 

appointing  Lutheran  incumbents.  Though  the  new 
officers  were  Lutheran,  the  episcopal  titles  were  re- 
tained, and  the  new  bishops  received  consecration 
at  the  hands  of  the  single  remaining  representative 
of  the  old  Roman  hierarchy  of  Sweden,  Bishop 
Magni  of  Westeras — a  tenuousness  of  the  stream 
of  "apostolic  succession  "  that  has  led  to  denial  of 
its  continuity  by  some  other  episcopally  organized 
Protestants.  The  archbishopric  of  Upsala,  still  the 
head  of  the  Swedish  Church,  though  shorn  of  its  old 
judicial  authority  over  the  other  bishoprics,  was 
given  to  Lars  Petersen  in  1531. 

Under  the  leadership  of  Olaf  Petersen,  energeti- 
cally supported  by  the  king,  Swedish  public  worship 
was  revised  in  very  conservative  Lutheran  fashion  in 
1529  and  1531  ;  and  a  collection  of  Swedish  hymns 
was  issued  in  1530.  Gustavus  was  a  severe  and 
grasping  master  ;  but  he  was  a  man  of  great  effi- 
ciency, who  knew  how  to  use  all  elements  of  the 
population  for  his  purpose  of  building  up  the  mon- 
archy. In  spite  of  insurrections,  he  had  his  title 
declared  hereditary  in  1544.  To  him  the  foundation 
of  modern  Sweden  was  due.  But  it  was  the  king 
rather  than  the  religious  cause  that  had  popular 
approval  in  the  Swedish  Reformation.  Earnest  as 
was  the  Evangelical  zeal  of  the  Petersens  or  of 
Andersen,  the  people  of  the  land  were  not  touched 
by  the  Protestant  spirit  as  were  those  of  northern 
Germany.  For  them,  as  a  whole,  the  Reformation 
was  a  political  rather  than  a  religious  movement — 
a  phase  in  a  national  political  revolution  rather  than 
a  profound  religious  change.     It  was  long  before 


282  The  Reformation. 

the  land  could  be  called  assuredly  Protestant.  Gus- 
tavus  himself  had  to  beat  down  a  great  insurrection, 
that  was  certainly  intensified  by  Roman  sympa- 
thy, between  1537  and  1543  ;  and  under  Gustavus's 
younger  son  and  second  successor,  John  III.  (king 
1568-92),  the  Jesuits,  supported  by  the  king  himself, 
believed  the  restoration  of  Catholicism  feasible. 
But  fifty  years  of  independence  had  intrenched 
Protestantism  too  deeply,  at  last,  to  make  a  return 
to  Roman  obedience  possible. 

While  a  revolution  was  thus  making  Sweden  a 
Protestant  land,  a  similar  transformation  was  taking 
place  in  Denmark.  Christian  II.,  whose  cruelty 
was  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  successful  revolt 
of  Sweden  against  Danish  sovereignty,  was  anxious 
to  diminish  the  power  of  the  great  landholding 
clergy  and  nobles  in  his  home  kingdom  and  to 
raise  that  of  the  middle  class  as  a  counterweight. 
In  this  effort  he  favored  the  introduction  of  the 
Lutheran  movement  into  Denmark,  and  invited 
Luther  himself  or  some  of  his  preachers  to  under- 
take the  work.  By  the  close  of  1520,  Luther's 
friend,  Martin  Reinhard,  was  preaching  through  an 
interpreter  at  Kopenhagen.  Luther's  restless  col- 
league, Carlstadt,  followed  him  for  a  few  weeks. 
Christian  II.,  in  1521,  put  forth  laws  forbidding 
appeals  to  Rome,  permitting  priestly  marriage,  and 
limiting  the  temporal  power  of  the  bishops.  The 
next  year  he  made  many  changes  in  the  city 
governments  of  his  realm.  But  the  qualities  which 
he  had  displayed  in  Sweden, though  not  so  drastically 
exhibited  in  Denmark,  rendered  him  unpopular  and 


De?imark.  283 

brought  discredit  on  his  reforms.  In  1523,  Chris- 
tian II.  was  driven  from  the  land  and  his  uncle  was 
made  king  as  Frederick  I.  He  occupied  the  Danish 
throne  for  ten  years. 

Though  Frederick  I.  at  his  accession  had  to  swear 
opposition  to  Lutheranism,  and  the  condemnation  of 
Christian's  II. 's  slight  reforms  felt  by  the  dominant 
party  was  expressed  by  the  burning  of  his  statute- 
book,  the  Lutheran  movement  made  rapid  headway 
among  the  people.  Chief  among  its  preachers  was 
Hans  Tausen  (1494-1561),  often  called  "  the  Danish 
Luther,"  like  Luther  of  peasant  birth,  and,  like 
him,  also  a  monk,  who  had  been  a  student  at  Wit- 
tenberg in  1523.  Returning  to  Denmark  in  1524, 
Tausen  preached  Lutheran  doctrine  and  was  im- 
prisoned for  a  short  time  as  a  heretic.  On  his 
release,  he  labored  with  power  in  Wiborg,  only  to 
be  once  more  incarcerated.  But  now  Frederick  I, 
set  him  free  and  made  him  a  royal  chaplain  and,  in 
1529,  pastor  of  one  of  the  important  churches  of 
Kopenhagen.  This  act  of  the  king  was  illustrative 
of  his  increasing  favor  to  the  Protestant  cause — a 
favor  shown  in  a  decree  which  he  obtained  from  the 
national  diet  at  Odense  in  1527,  by  the  aid  of  the 
nobles  who  made  common  cause  with  the  monarchy 
against  the  power  of  the  bishops,  granting  toleration 
to  the  preachers  of  the  new  doctrine  till  the  much- 
talked-of  universal  council  should  settle  the  dis- 
putes of  Christendom.  In  1530,  Tausen  and  his 
associates  prepared,  at  the  command  of  the  king,  a 
confession  in  forty-three  articles.  By  1533,  when 
Frederick  I.  died,  Lutheranism  had  taken  firm  root 
in  many  parts  of  Denmark. 


284  The  Reformation. 

On  the  death  of  Frederick  I.  a  complicated 
struggle  took  place  in  Denmark.  Christian  II. 
attempted  to  regain  the  throne,  with  the  aid  of  the 
commercial  cities  of  the  Hanseatic  league,  Liibeck,  ■ 
Stralsund  and  Rostock,  and  the  support  of  Kopen- 
hagen,  all  of  which  were  jealous  of  the  rising  power 
of  independent  Sweden,  and  favorable  to  Christian 
II. 's  burgher  sympathies.  Frederick's  sons.  Chris- 
tian and  John,  entered  the  field,  also,  on  opposite 
sides  ;  Christian  having  the  support  of  the  Protes- 
tants and  of  many  of  the  nobles,  and  John  of  the 
bishops.  In  the  struggle,  Prince  Christian  won,  and 
secured  the  throne  as  Christian  III.  (1533-59); 
and  his  victory  determined  the  religious  future  of 
Denmark.  A  conservative  Lutheran  Reformation 
was  now  enforced  by  the  government,  the  bishops 
were  removed  and  imprisoned,  their  lands  confis- 
cated, and  Luther's  friend,  Johann  Bugenhagen 
(1485-1558),  was  summoned  from  Wittenberg  to 
crown  Christian  III.  (August  12,  1537),  and  to  re- 
organize the  Danish  Church.  Public  worship  was 
now  conformed  to  the  Lutheran  model ;  and,  in 
September,  1537,  Bugenhagen  ordained  seven  "  su- 
perintendents "  in  place  of  the  deposed  bishops. 
To  them  the  name  of  bishops,  which  they  still  bear, 
was  soon  given  ;  but  they  could,  of  course,  lay  no 
claim  to  "apostolic  succession  "  by  episcopal  ordi- 
nation. 

These  events  in  Denmark  carried  with  them  the 
Lutheranization  of  the  associated  territory  of  Nor- 
way. By  1536,  Christian  III.  was  recognized  in  the 
southern  portion  of  that  land,  while  the  northern 


Norway  and  Iceland.  285 

part  favored  Christian  II.,  through  the  influence 
of  the  powerful  archbishop  of  Trondhjem.  But 
Christian  III.  soon  gained  the  upper  hand  here  also, 
and  the  archbishop  was  compelled  to  fly.  Popu- 
lar feeling  had  little  sympathy  with  the  Lutheran 
Reformation  ;  but  royal  authority  carried  it  through 
on  the  same  lines  as  in  Denmark.  The  final  strug- 
gle of  the  new  doctrine  for  the  possession  of  the 
Scandinavian  lands  was  in  Denmark's  far-off  terri- 
tory of  Iceland.  Gisser  Einarsen,  a  pupil  of  Luther 
at  Wittenberg,  appointed  Lutheran  bishop  of  Skal- 
holt  in  1540,  was  the  chief  advocate  of  Protestantism 
in  the  island  ;  and  his  efforts  were  aided  by  the 
publication,  in  the  year  just  mentioned,  of  an  Ice- 
landic translation  of  Luther's  New  Testament. 
But  Iceland  was  not  easily  won.  Under  Bishop 
Aresen,  the  Roman  party  rose  in  1548,  and  its 
resistance  was  not  overcome  till  1554,  when  Luther- 
anism  was  enforced  with  a  heavy  hand. 

While  the  Reformation,  in  its  Lutheran  type,  was 
thus  powerfully  extended  northward  through  the  aid 
of  political  movements,  it  made  considerable,  though 
less  extensive,  conquests  to  the  eastward  and  south- 
eastward of  its  original  German  source.  By  1523, 
Albrecht  of  Brandenburg-Ansbach(i49Q-i568),ruler 
of  the  eastern  territory  of  old  Prussia,  as  grand-mas- 
ter of  the  Teutonic  Order  by  which  the  land  had 
been  conquered  in  the  thirteenth  century,  had  vis- 
ited Wittenberg  and  sought  Luther's  assistance 
in  introducing  ecclesiastical  and  political  changes 
into  his  land.  Through  the  preaching  of  Luther's 
friend  and  pupil,  Johann  Briessmann  (1488-1549),  at 


286  The  Refonnaizon. 

Konigsburg,  and  of  the  Lutheran  hymn-writer,  Paul 
Speratus  (1484-155 1),  Prussia  was  rapidly  won  for 
the  Evangelical  side,  and  Georg  von  Polentz  (1478- 
1550),  bishop  of  Samland,  became  the  first  Roman 
prelate  to  embrace  the  Lutheran  cause  late  in  1523. 
A  year  later,  Erhard  von  Queiss,  whose  episcopal  see 
was  at  Marienwerder,  followed  Polentz's  example. 
Albrecht  turned  these  events  to  his  political  advan- 
tage. In  April,  1525,  Albrecht,  with  the  consent  of 
the  nobles  and  towns  of  Prussia,  transformed  his 
elective  grand-mastership  into  a  dukedom  of  Prussia, 
held  in  fief  from  the  king  of  Poland,  and  in  July  of 
the  next  year  showed  his  complete  rejection  of  the 
celibate  vows  of  the  order  of  which  he  had  once  been 
the  head  by  marriage  with  a  princess  of  Denmark. 
Luther  and  Melanchthon  had  advised  him  as  early  as 
1523  to  take  both  these  steps.  The  two  bishops  also 
married,  and  put  themselves  under  the  authority  of 
their  new  duke  in  characteristic  Lutheran  fashion. 
The  churches  were  visited,  public  worship  revised, 
and  finally  a  university  was  founded  as  the  crown- 
ing feature  of  Albrecht's  reformation,  at  Konigs- 
burg, in  1544. 

In  the  neighboring  kingdom  of  Poland,  on  the 
contrary,  Lutheranism  found  a  difficult  entrance. 
In  Danzig,  it  was  suppressed  by  royal  authority  in 
1526,  Still  Evangelical  views  spread,  aided  by 
Hussite  sympathizers,  and  later  by  Bohemian  ex- 
iles. But  with  the  accession  of  Sigismund  August 
(king  1548-72),  the  Evangelical  movement  had  a 
free  path.  While  the  middle  classes  were  disposed 
to   Lutheranism,  Calvin's  views  found,  after  1544, 


Prussia  and  Polajid.  287 

greater  acceptance  with  the  nobles  ;  and  Calvinism 
was  strengthened  by  its  alliance,  in  1555,  with  the 
Bohemian  exiles  whom  persecution  in  their  home- 
land drove  to  Poland  from  1548  onward — a  union 
that  was  given  effective  organization  by  the  efforts 
of  the  most  famous  of  Polish  reformers,  Jan  Laski 
(John  a  Lasco,  i499-i56o),who  returned  to  his  native 
country  in  1556,  after  conspicuous  service  to  the 
Evangelical  cause  in  Friesland  and  England.  The 
same  year  that  Laski  returned,  each  Polish  land- 
holder was  given  the  right  to  choose  his  religion, 
and  cities  like  Danzig,  Thorn  and  Elbingen  were 
granted  similar  privileges  in  this  and  speedily  suc- 
ceeding years.  By  a  decree  of  1573,  Protestants 
and  Catholics  received  equal  rights.  But  extreme 
views  also  found  a  foothold  in  Poland.  Giorgio  Bian- 
drata  (Blandrata,  c.  1515-1585  ?)  and  Fausto  Sozzini 
(Faustus  Socinus,  1 539-1604),  Italian  Unitarians, 
who  found  no  rest  in  their  native  land  or  in  Switzer- 
land, were  welcomed  by  many  in  Poland  ;  and  the 
"Polish  Brethren,"  as  the  Polish  Unitarians  were 
called,  had  considerable  following  among  the  nobil- 
ity in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Here 
was  issued  at  Rakow,  in  1605,  the  most  important 
confession  that  Socinianism  produced  in  the  Reform 
mation  age — the  Racovian  Catechism.  But  the 
divisions  of  Polish  Protestantism  proved  its  ruin. 
From  1565  onward,  the  Jesuits  did  effective  work 
for  the  papacy,  and  slowly  won  control  of  Polish 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  till,  a  century  later,  they  were 
able  to  support  their  cause  by  force. 

Though  part  of  the  Holy  Roman  empire  and  con- 


288  The  Reformation. 


stituent  German  states  in  many  political  affairs,  Bohe- 
mia and  Moravia  were  so  separate  from  Germany  in 
their  dominant  race  that  they  deserve  mention  in 
this  connection.  The  old  Hussite  movement,  in  its 
moderate  and  radical  parties,  the  Calixtines  and  the 
United  Brethren  or  Moravians,  still  survived  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Saxon  revolt.  With  those  of  Calix- 
tine  sympathies,  Luther  came  at  once  into  cordial 
connection  ;  and  though,  owing  to  his  strenuousness 
of  view  regarding  the  nature  of  Christ's  presence  in 
the  Supper,  Luther  found  more  difficulty  in  enter- 
ing into  fellowship  with  the  more  radical  Bohemians 
— the  Brethren — a  large  degree  of  cordial  coopera- 
tion was  established  by  1532,  when  Luther  added  a 
decidedly  commendatory  preface  to  their  printed 
defence  of  their  faith  and  worship.  The  influence  of 
the  Saxon  reformers  and  the  presence  of  Bohemians 
in  the  class-rooms  of  Wittenberg  gave  the  Evangeli- 
cal movement  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia  a  powerful 
impetus  and  largely  Lutheranized  the  remnants  of 
the  work  of  Huss.  Many  refused  to  aid  their  king, 
Ferdinand,  the  brother  of  Charles  V.,  in  campaigns 
against  the  German  Protestants  in  1546-47,  and,  in 
consequence,  the  "  Brethren  "  were  largely  exiled  in 
1548,  and  added  strength  to  the  Evangelical  move- 
ment in  Poland.  But  Bohemian  Protestantism  grew, 
and  under  the  Emperor  Maximilian  IL  (1564-76) 
was  practically  unhindered.  As  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury went  on,  the  non-German  Protestants  of  Bohe- 
mia, and  especially  the  Brethren,  came  to  sympa- 
thize with  Calvinism;  but  a  common  danger,  through 
vigorous  attack  by  energetic  Jesuits,  and  especially 


Bohemia  and  Hungary.  289 


through  the  strongly  Roman  Rudolph  II.  ,who  gained 
control  of  Bohemia  in    1575,  and  was  to  hold   the 
throne  of  the   Holy  Roman  empire    from   1576  to 
161 2,  led  to  union  for  defence  and  the  preparation 
of  a  common  Protestant  Bohemian   Confession  in 
1575.     By  the  opening  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
nine-tenths  of  the  inhabitants  of  Bohemia  were  op- 
ponents  of    Rome  ;  and,  in   1609,  Rudolph  II.  was 
compelled  to  grant  full  toleration  to  all  adherents  to 
the  Bohemian  Confession.    But  within  a  generation, 
this  flourishing  Bohemian  Protestantism  was  wholly 
crushed  amid  the  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
Protestantism  penetrated  yet  further  to  the  south- 
east   of   its   German    source.     Hungarian    students 
promptly  carried  Lutheran  views  from  Wittenberg 
to    their    home-land,    where    earlier    teachings    by 
Waldensians  and  Hussites  had  in  some  slight  degree 
prepared  the  way.     And  yet  further  to  the  south- 
eastward the  German  colonists  of  Transylvania  felt 
strong  sympathy  with  the  religious  upheaval  of  the 
Fatherland.     In  spite  of  severe  repressive  statutes 
issued  in  1523  and   1525,  Protestantism  gained  had 
considerable  following  when  the  great  Turkish  vic- 
tory of  Mohacs,  on  August  29,   1526,  divided  the 
land  and  paralyzed  in  large  measure  the  power  of  its 
Catholic  rulers  by  the  subsequent  contests  between 
John  Zdpolya  and   Charles  V.'s   younger  brother, 
Ferdinand,    for    its    mastery.     Protestantism   now 
rapidly   grew,    spread    in   Transylvania   from    1533 
onward  by  the  zealous  Johann  Honter  (1498-1549), 
and  in  Hungary  by  Matthias  Biro  D6vay  (c.  1500  to 
c.  1545),  a  student  at  Wittenberg  in  early  manhood, 


290  The  Reformation. 

who  fulfilled  a  stormy  and  persecuted  ministry  of 
much  power.  Devay  came  ultimately  to  support 
the  Swiss  rather  than  the  Lutheran  type  of  re- 
form ;  and  the  Hungarian  Protestants,  as  a  whole, 
sympathized  with  Calvin,  while  their  German  and 
Slavonic  fellow-countrymen  in  Hungary  proper  and 
in  Transylvania  were  as  predominantly  Lutherans. 
The  quarrels  between  the  two  parties  lamed  the 
Evangelical  cause.  And,  as  in  Poland,  so  especially 
in  Transylvania,  more  radical  reformers  of  the 
Unitarian  school  had  their  considerable  following. 
As  early  as  1540,  Unitarians  were  to  be  found  in 
Transylvania  ;  but  their  chief  growth  began  when, 
in  1563,  the  Italian  Unitarian,  Giorgio  Biandrata, 
came  from  Poland  thither.  John  Zdpolya's  son, 
John  Sigismund,  prince  of  Transylvania  from  1540 
to  1571,  granted,  in  1568,  universal  toleration  and 
accorded  equal  rights  to  Catholics,  Lutherans,  Cal- 
vinists  and  Unitarians.  These  privileges  were  con- 
firmed, and  the"  four  religions"  recognized,  by  a 
Transylvanian  diet  in  1571  ;  and  the  Unitarian  body 
has  maintained  a  respectable  existence  in  Transyl- 
vania to  the  present  day.  Hungary  resisted  Unita- 
rianism.  In  that  land  Protestantism  of  the  Lutheran 
and  Calvinist  types  steadily  grew  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  till  it  had  the  support 
of  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants.  By  1586,  however, 
the  Jesuits  began  an  active  attack  with  such  success 
that,  by  1634,  the  Catholics  regained  a  majority  in 
the  Hungarian  diet.  But  Protestantism  has  sur- 
vived with  considerable  vigor  to  the  present  time 
and  numbers  about  one-fifth  of  the  population  of 
the  land  as  its  adherents. 


Spain.  291 

In  Spain  and  Italy,  also,  the  Lutheran  revolt  was 
not  without  a  considerable  number  of  sympathizers. 
Luther's  writings  circulated  rapidly  in  limited  cir- 
cles in  both  peninsulas.  Many  Spaniards  of  posi- 
tion were  brought  to  a  knowledge  of  Lutheran- 
ism  by  their  service  to  Charles  V.,  ruler  at  once 
of  Spain  and  of  Germany.  But  in  neither  land  did 
the  Lutheran  revolt  become  in  any  sense  a  popu- 
lar movement.  Sympathy  with  its  principles  was 
somewhat  widely  diffused,  but  chiefly  among  the 
educated  classes,  and  often  without  open  breach 
with  the  Roman  Church.  It  is  often  hard  to 
classify  those  with  whom  the  new  views  found  some 
acceptance  as  Protestants  or  as  Catholics,  for  the 
lines  were  not  at  first  drawn  with  the  rigidity  that 
they  afterward  attained. 

Among  the  Spaniards,  the  twin  brothers,  Alfonso 
and  Juan  de  Vald6s  (c.  1 500-1 532?,  c.  1 500-1 541?), 
of  humanistic  training,  were  disposed  to  show  con- 
siderable favor  to  Lutheran  principles.  Alfonso 
was  present  in  the  train  of  Charles  V.  at  Worms  in 
1521,  and  he  defended  the  capture  of  Rome  in  1527 
by  a  free-spoken  criticism  of  papal  abuses.  At 
Augsburg,  in  1530,  he  translated  the  Confession  for 
the  emperor  and  served  as  a  mediator  in  the  ensuing 
discussions.  Juan  was  yet  more  positive  in  his 
openness  to  the  new  views.  His  dialogue  between 
Mercury  and  Charon,  printed  in  1529,  vigorously 
arraigned  the  Roman  curia  and  the  state  of  the 
Church.  In  1533,  he  found  a  home  in  Naples,  where 
he  remained  till  his  death,  and  where  his  influence 
was  great  in  spreading  views  largely  akin  to  those 


292  The   Reformation. 


of  Luther  ;  though  neither  brother  ever  formally 
broke  with  the  Roman  Church.  Evangelical  opin- 
ions were  introduced  into  Seville  by  Rodrigo  de 
Valero,  and  won  the  support  of  the  chief  preacher 
at  the  cathedral  of  that  city,  Juan  Gil,  and  of  an 
imperial  chaplain.  Ponce  de  la  Fuente.  In  Vallado- 
lid,  next  to  Seville  the  chief  centre  of  sympathy 
with  Evangelical  views,  Gil  advocated  the  new 
opinions  in  1555,  and  similar  sentiments  were  enter- 
tained by  Domingo  de  Rojas  and  Agostino  Cazalla, 
both  leaders  among  the  Valladolid  clergy.  Their 
work  was  aided  by  the  Spanish  version  of  the  New 
Testament  published  at  Antwerp,  in  1543,  by  Fran- 
cisco Enzinas,  and  at  Venice  or  Geneva,  in  1556,  by 
Juan  Perez.  The  movement  was  at  its  height 
between  1550  and  1560,  and  it  has  been  estimated 
that  it  numbered  as  many  as  two  thousand  adher- 
ents. But  Protestantism,  even  of  this  non-aggres- 
sive type,  was  an  exotic  on  Spanish  soil.  Its  first 
martyr  was  Francisco  San  Romano,  who  was  burned 
at  Valladolid  in  1544  ;  but  it  was  between  1557  and 
1 560  that  the  Inquisition  awoke  to  the  full  extent 
of  the  defection.  Atito-da-f^s  at  Valladolid  in  1559, 
and  at  Seville  in  the  same  year  and  in  1560,  swept 
away  the  Evangelical  movement  in  those  cities ; 
and  by  1570  it  had  practically  ceased  to  exist  in 
Spain. 

In  no  land  was  religion  at  a  lower  ebb  when  the 
Evangelical  movement  began  than  in  Italy.  The 
heathenizing  influences  of  the  extreme  type  which 
Italian  humanism  assumed  and  the  worldly  policy 
of  a  papacy  anxious  for  political  aggrandizement 


Italy.  293 

had  largely  deadened  the  upper  classes  to  religious 
feeling,  while  the  lower  orders,  to  whom  the  Renas- 
cence had  never  penetrated,  were  inaccessible  to 
such  thoughts  as  the  German  peasantry  readily  wel- 
comed. Yet  certain  cultivated  circles  in  the  Italy  of 
the  third  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  not 
a  little  stirred  ;  and  though  Italian  reformers  were 
far  more  Roman  than  Protestant,  some  characteris- 
tic ideas  which  found  their  full  expression  in  Luther 
for  many  years  had  welcome  from  some  who  never 
broke  or  desired  to  break  with  the  Roman  Church. 
As  far  as  Evangelical  thought  penetrated  Italy,  it 
was  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  that  there 
found  acceptance  rather  than  Luther's  criticisms  of 
the  Roman  conception  of  the  Church.  The  Roman 
Church  could  hardly  present  the  same  aspect  to  an 
Italian  that  it  did  to  a  German.  To  the  inhabitant 
of  the  Italian  peninsula,  it  was  a  national  institution 
in  which  he  must  feel  a  certain  pride,  even  if  the 
necessity  of  its  reform  was  recognized  ;  to  the  Ger- 
man it  was  foreign  at  best. 

In  Italy  the  streams  of  reformatory  impulse  from 
Germany  and  Spain  met  and  partially  mingled, 
though  that  from  Spain  was  far  the  stronger,  and 
there  was  considerable  reformatory  zeal  which  may 
properly  be  called  local  in  its  oeigin.  It  would  be 
wholly  wrong  to  describe  the  circle  which  was  formed 
at  Rome  by  some  sixty  earnest-minded  ecclesiastics 
in  the  closing  months  of  the  pontificate  of  Leo  X. 
— the  Oratory  of  Divine  Love — as  a  Protestant 
movement.  It  belonged  far  more  to  the  beginnings 
of  the  Catholic  counter-Reformation;  its  aim  was  not 


294  1^^^  Reformation. 

to  favor  heresy,  but  rather  to  repress  it  by  fostering 
a  purer  reHgious  life  and  a  more  worthy  pubHc  wor- 
ship. But  this  Oratory  united  in  the  bond  of  a  com- 
mon zeal  for  the  betterment  of  Italian  religious  con- 
ditions men  destined  to  take  opposite  courses  in  the 
struggle  that  was  to  follow.  The  association  included 
that  fiery  Neapohtan  sympathizer  with  Ximenes, 
who  was  to  be  conspicuous  in  introducing  the  Span- 
ish type  of  Reformation  into  Italy,  Giovanni  Pietro 
Caraffa  (1476-1559),  later  to  be  Pope  Paul  IV.  and 
the  arch-enemy  of  all  Italian  Protestantism.  It 
numbered  of  its  members  the  gentle,  meditative, 
mediaevally  devout  Gaetano  di  Thi^ne  (1480-1547), 
who,  with  the  aid  of  Caraffa,  was  to  found  the  influ- 
ential order  of  the  Theatines  in  1524,  for  the  culti- 
vation of  preaching  and  of  pastoral  zeal.  It  also 
embraced  such  moderate  churchmen  as  the  brilliant 
Latinist  Jacopo  Sadoleto,  to  whose  appeal  to  the 
Protestants  of  Geneva,  Calvin  was  twenty  years  later 
to  reply  in  a  famous  letter,  or  Pietro  Carnesecchi, 
who  was  to  be  secretary  to  Clement  VII.,  to  foster 
Evangelical  opinions  in  Padua  and  Florence,  and  to 
die  under  the  Inquisition  in  1567. 

Similar  in  spirit  to  the  more  Evangelically  inclined 
members  of  this  Oratory,  though  not  himself  of  it, 
was  Gasparo  Contarini  (1483-1542),  a  member  of 
one  of  the  proudest  of  Venetian  families,  the  noblest 
figure  among  the  Italian  prelates  of  the  Reformation 
age.  A  man  whose  early  career  was  spent  in  secular 
politics,  the  ambassador  of  Venice  to  Charles  V.  at 
the  Reichstag  of  Worms,  and  an  influential  agent  in 
the  reconciliation  between  emperor  and  pope  after 


Italy.  295 

the  sack  of  Rome,  Contarini  passed  through  the 
sordid  school  of  Italian  politics  in  the  age  of  Mac- 
chiavelli  upright  in  personal  life,  respected  in  con- 
duct and  character,  and  profoundly  religious  in 
motive.  Aristocrat  that  he  was,  Contarini  had  no 
sympathy  with  the  democratic  aspects  of  the  German 
Reformation.  His  was  rather  the  ideal  of  the  great 
councils  of  a  century  before — that  of  a  reform  from 
above  downward;  a  renovation  in  "head  and  mem- 
bers ;"  but  he  approved  in  large  measure  of  the  doc- 
trine of  justification  by  faith.  Made  a  cardinal,  in 
1535,  by  Paul  III.,  who  appreciated  the  advantage 
of  retaining  for  the  papacy  so  powerful  a  person- 
ality, Contarini  represented  the  pope,  as  has  already 
been  narrated,  in  the  efforts  put  forth  by  Charles  V. 
to  bring  about  an  agreement  between  Protestants 
and  Catholics  at  the  Reichstag  of  Regensburg  in 
1 541.  Much  he  was  willing  to  concede  to  the  Prot- 
estants, but  not  those  things  which  are  vital  to  the 
Roman  system  ;  and  though  he  died,  in  1542,  under 
the  frown  of  the  stricter  Roman  party  and  his  sym- 
pathizers were  speedily  persecuted  by  the  victorious 
Spanish  type  of  the  counter-Reformation,  Contarini 
belonged  in  the  ranks  of  reformatory  Romans  rather 
than  in  those  of  the  Evangelicals. 

In  many  respects  one  with  Contarini  in  willing- 
ness to  accept  some  of  the  principles  of  the  Saxon 
reformers  and  in  unwillingness  to  reject  the  papacy, 
was  an  English  exile  in  Italy,  Reginald  Pole  (1500- 
58),  later  to  be  Queen  Mary's  archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury and  the  enemy  of  English  Protestantism, 
but  a  man  suspected  of  heresy  in  Italy,  and  a  reputed 


296  The  Reformation. 

believer  in  justification  by  faith  alone.  Of  similar 
spirit,  also,  were  Giovanni  de  Morone  (1509-80), 
bishop  of  Modena  and  then  of  Novara,  and  Federigo 
Fregoso  (d.  1541),  archbishop  of  Salerno — both,  like 
Contarini  and  Pole,  ultimately  cardinals. 

When  certain  doctrines  characteristic  of  the  Ger- 
man Reformation  had  the  countenance  of  men  of 
such  eminence,  it  is  no  wonder  that  sympathy  with 
some  aspects  of  the  Protestant  movement  was  widely 
felt  among  the  cultivated  classes  of  Italy  for  a  time. 
At  Ferrara,  where  the  French  princess  Renee  (151 1- 
75),  the  wife  of  Duke  Ercole  d'Este,  held  her  court, 
reformers  of  all  shades  found  toleration  and  friend- 
ship during  the  fourth  decade  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  In  Venice,  where  political  independence 
favored  freedom  of  expression  and  of  printing, 
Luther's  books  were  early  circulated.  There  Anto- 
nio Bruccioli  (?-i556?)  published,  in  1530,  his  Italian 
translation  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  the  whole 
Bible  two  years  later — a  version  that  was,  indeed, 
far  from  being  the  first  presentation  of  the  Scriptures 
in  Italian  dress,  for  the  Bible  had  been  issued  in 
repeated  editions  in  the  fifteenth  century,  but  the 
first  that  represented  the  new  freedom  of  scholarship 
that  access  to  Greek  and  Hebrew  facilitated.  Mo- 
dena, Bologna,  Lucca,  Padua,  Verona  and  Florence 
had  their  sympathizers.  But  the  most  influential 
circle  was  at  Naples,  where  the  brilliant  young  sec- 
retary to  the  Spanish  viceroy,  Juan  de  Valdes,  whose 
career  has  already  been  noted  in  connection  with 
the  spread  of  the  new  doctrines  in  Spain,  won  many 
adherents  for  Evangelical  views  during  the  seven  or 


Italy.  297 

eight  years  that  elapsed  between  his  settlement  in 
the  city  in  1533  and  his  death.  These  Neapolitan 
innovators  had  no  plan  of  breaking  ^yith  the  Roman 
Church,  but  they  welcomed  many  of  the  ideas  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation.  The  lines  had  not  yet  been 
sharply  drawn.  They  felt  its  religious  power,  rather 
than  sympathized  with  its  doctrinal  or  ecclesiastical 
criticisms.  And  from  this  Neapolitan  awakening 
came  the  most  famous  volume  that  Italian  semi- 
Protestantism  produced  — TJie  Benefit  of  Christ's 
Death  —  written  very  probably  by  an  Augustinian 
monk,  Benedetto  da  Mantova,  though  often  ascribed 
to  the  eminent  humanist,  reformer  and  martyr, 
Aonio  Paleario  (1500-70),  of  Siena,  Lucca  and 
Milan,  or  even  to  Valdes  himself. 

During  the  fourth  decade  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, it  seemed  as  if  this  half-Protestant,  half-Roman 
movement  might  bear  permanent  fruitage  in  Italy. 
But  the  strict  Roman  party  under  the  leadership  of 
Caraffa  gained  the  upper  hand  when  Contarini's 
efforts  to  reconcile  Protestants  and  Catholics  proved 
vain  at  Regensburg  in  1541  ;  and,  on  July  21,  1542, 
the  Inquisition  was  reorganized  on  the  Spanish 
model  at  Rome.  The  Evangelical  structure  fell 
like  a  house  of  cards  before  it.  The  innovators  had 
no  effective  popular  or  princely  support.  Many 
were  imprisoned  or  burned.  Many  more  went  back 
to  a  full  outward  Roman  obedience.  Some  fled 
the  land.  In  a  very  few  years  all  sympathizers 
with  Evangelical  views  were  rooted  out,  and  the 
Protestant  revolt,  as  far  as  Italy  was  moved  by  it, 
was  as  if  it  had  not  been. 


298  The  Reformation. 

These  repressive  measures,  though  they  showed 
how  slight  a  hold  Protestant  conceptions  had  gained 
on  Italy,  brought  to  the  light  the  full  Protestant- 
ism of  several  members  of  the  reformatory  Italian 
circles.  Such  a  man  was  Bernardino  Ochino  (1487- 
1564),  a  native  of  Siena  and  a  Capuchin  monk,  who 
was  twice  chosen  vicar-general  of  his  order  and 
enjoyed  wide  repute  as  a.  preacher  of  surpassing 
power.  Drawn  to  Evangelical  views  largely  through 
the  influence  of  Valdes,  he  was  denounced  as  a 
heretic  in  1542,  and  fled  to  Zlirich  and  Geneva. 
In  Geneva,  Strassburg  and  Augsburg,  he  labored 
among  his  fugitive  fellow-countrymen.  Cranmer 
invited  him  to  England  in  1 547,  and  from  that  year 
till  1554  he  found  active  employment  for  his  pen 
and  voice  in  London.  Mary's  accession  drove  him 
back  to  Zurich,  where  he  fell  under  the  influence  of 
more  radical  views,  especially  those  of  his  fellow- 
townsman,  Lelio  Sozzini  (Socinus),  and  advanced 
extreme  opinions  which  brought  him  much  opposi- 
tion. A  dialogue  that  seemed  fo  many  disposed  to 
favor  polygamy  led  to  his  expulsion  from  ZUrich  in 
1563,  and  he  died,  a  homeless  wanderer,  in  Moravia, 
in  December,  1564. 

Such  a  man,  also,  was  Pietro  Martire  Vermigli 
(Peter  Martyr,  1500-62),  a  well-born  Florentine, 
who  had  early  entered  the  order  of  the  canons  of 
St.  Augustine,  and  rose  to  be  prior  of  a  monastery 
near  Naples.  Won  for  Evangelical  views  by  Vald6s 
and  Ochino,  he  became  prior  of  San  Frediano  at 
Lucca,  where  he  advocated  opinions  akin  to  those 
of  the  Saxon  Reformation.      The  newly  established 


Italy.  299 

Inquisition  compelled  his  flight  in  1542,  and  he 
found  refuge  in  Strassburg,  where  he  became  pro- 
fessor of  Hebrew.  Cranmer  called  him  to  England 
with  Ochino  in  1547,  and  he  taught  at  Oxford  till 
Mary's  restoration  of  Catholicism  sent  him  once 
more  to  Strassburg.  In  1555,  he  removed  to  Zurich, 
where  he  closed  his  much-vexed  and  useful  life. 

Of  similar  desert  was  Galeazzo  Caraccioli  (1517- 
86),  Marquis  of  Vico,  and  a  nephew  of  Caraffa 
himself.  Led  to  Evangelical  beliefs  by  Vald6s  and 
Pietro  Martire,  he  remained  in  the  circle  at  Naples 
as  long  as  he  dared,  and  fled  at  last,  in  1551,  to 
Geneva.  There  he  resisted  all  entreaties  of  his  wife 
and  family  to  abandon  his  faith  and  return  to  Italy, 
and  remained  till  his  death  a  main  pillar  of  the  little 
Genevan  communion  of  Italian  Protestant  refugees. 
A  man  of  more  churchly  prominence  than  Caraccioli 
who  adopted  Evangelical  opinions  was  Pietro  Paolo 
Vergerio  (1498-1565),  bishop  of  Capodistria,  papal 
secretary  and  nuncio.  Pursued  for  several  years  by 
the  Inquisition,  he  escaped,  in  1549,  to  Switzerland, 
and  from  1553  to  his  death  enjoyed  an  honorable 
repute  as  a  citizen  of  Tubingen  and  a  counsellor 
of  the  duke  of  Wiirtemberg.  In  Jeronimo  Zanchi 
(1516-90),  like  Pietro  Martire  a  member  of  the 
order  of  St.  Augustine,  Protestantism  won  one  of 
its  ablest  Italian  converts.  A  wanderer  for  his 
faith  in  England,  Switzerland  and  Germany,  he 
taught  at  Strassburg,  Heidelberg  and  Neustadt,  and 
became  famous  as  one  of  the  ablest  of  Calvinistic 
theologians  of  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. 


300  The  Reformation. 

But,  as  has  already  been  intimated  in  speaking  of 
Ochino,  an  extreme  radical  tendency  readily  de- 
veloped among  the  Italian  opponents  of  Rome  and 
appeared  most  distinctly  in  the  form  of  anti-Trini- 
tarianism.  For  a  time,  before  the  full  sweep  of  this 
criticism  was  manifest  to  others,  or  perhaps  to  them- 
selves, a  number  of  these  radical  thinkers  found 
refuge  in  Geneva  and  shared  in  the  life  of  the  Italian 
congregation  in  that  city  during  the  sixth  decade 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  Among  them  were  Mat- 
teo  Gribaldi  (?-i564),  once  a  professor  of  law  at 
Padua,  whom  the  Genevan  government  expelled  for 
his  opinions  on  the  Trinity  in  1559,  and  Giovanni 
Valentino  Gentile  (c.  1520-66)  of  Cosenza,  in  Cala- 
bria, who  came  a  fugitive  to  Geneva  about  I557> 
and,  falling  under  condemnation  by  reason  of  his 
views,  was  punished  by  the  Genevan  authorities, 
fled  their  jurisdiction,  and  lived  a  wandering  life  in 
France  and  Poland.  Expelled  from  that  last  refuge. 
Gentile  returned  to  Switzerland,  and  was  beheaded 
at  Berne,  in  1566,  after  a  trial  in  some  ways  re- 
sembling that  of  Servetus.  Of  similar  anti-Trini- 
tarian convictions  was  Giorgio  Biandrata,  of  whose 
work  in  Poland  and  Transylvania  mention  has 
already  been  made.  Sprung  from  a  family  of  dis- 
tinction in  Saluzzo,  Biandrata  attained  to  eminence 
in  medicine,  and  after  serving  professionally  the 
families  of  the  rulers  of  Poland  and  Transylvania,  he 
returned  to  Italy  and  settled  in  Pavia,  whence  he 
fled  from  the  Inquisition  to  Geneva  in  1557.  A 
radical  inquirer,  he  discussed  much  with  Calvin 
the  objections  which  he  advanced  against  the  his- 


Anti-Trinitarians.  y:>\ 

toric  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  With  a  fellow- 
believer,  Gianpaolo  Alziati,  he  refused  to  sign  the 
Trinitarian  Confession  which  Calvin  laid  before  the 
Italian  congregation  of  Geneva  in  May,  1558,  and 
left  the  city,  going  the  same  year  to  the  already 
familiar  Poland,  and  thence,  in  1563,  to  Transylva- 
nia, where  he  gained  a  decidedly  favorable  hearing 
for  his  opinions  and  helped  to  found  the  Unitarian 
communion  which  there  obtained  legal  recognition. 
Most  famous  of  any  of  the  Italian  thinkers  of 
this  radically  critical  school  were  two  natives  of 
Siena,  Lelio  Sozzini  (Socinus,  1525-62),  and  his  far 
better  known  nephew,  Fausto  (i 539-1604).  The 
elder  left  the  Roman  Church  in  1546,  and  de- 
veloped his  radical  theories  only  gradually.  He 
was  a  natural  doubter  ;  and  he  sought  the  truth  in  a 
wandering  hfe  of  study  in  Switzerland,  France, 
England,  Germany  and  Poland.  He  visited  Calvin 
at  Geneva,  and  finally  settled  at  Zurich,  where  he 
was  held  in  decided  esteem.  Indeed,  had  it  not 
been  for  his  nephew's  far  greater  work  and  his 
nephew's  acknowledged  indebtedness  to  his  un- 
published speculations,  Lelio  Sozzini  would  have 
had  little  fame  and  would  scarcely  have  been 
reckoned  the  Unitarian  that  he  was.  Fausto  Soz- 
zini, Hke  several  others  of  his  family,  was  devoted  to 
the  study  of  law  when  the  suspicions  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, which  had  been  aroused  against  Lelio's  rela- 
tives by  that  exile's  repute  as  a  heretic,  induced 
him  to  flee  his  native  city.  On  the  death  of  Lelio, 
Fausto  became  his  literary  executor  ;  and  the  study 
of  the  uncle's  papers  made  the  nephew  a  critic  of 


302  The  Reforination. 

many  doctrines  held  by  Catholics  and  Protestants 
alike,  especially  that  of  the  Trinity.  His  opposition 
was  not  publicly  pronounced  at  first,  however ; 
and,  from  1562  to  1574,  he  held  an  honorable  po- 
sition in  the  service  of  the  princely  Medician  house 
at  Florence,  Four  years  of  quiet  theological  in- 
vestigation at  Basel  laid  the  foundation  studies 
for  treatises  of  ability  in  criticism  of  the  Anselmic 
theory  of  the  Atonement  and  of  the  ascription  of 
physical  death  to  the  consequences  of  the  Adamic 
transgression.  The  year  1578  saw  Fausto  in  Tran- 
sylvania and  1579  in  Poland,  where  he  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  life — a  quarter  of  a  century — in 
vigorous  efforts  to  spread  and  maintain  his  beliefs. 
A  man  of  great  honesty  of  purpose  and  sincerity 
of  conviction,  Fausto  Sozzini  was  of  dry,  hard  and 
unimaginative  mould,  a  thorough  rationalist  in  spirit, 
yet  an  extreme  supernaturalist  in  his  faith.  In  him 
the  critical  tendency  of  the  later  scholasticism  of 
Duns  Scotus  and  Occam,  developed  by  the  skeptical 
spirit  of  the  Renascence,  would  bring  all  truth  to  the 
bar  of  ' '  reason  and  common  sense. ' '  The  New  Tes- 
tament, he  held,  is  of  supernatural  origin  ;  but  it  is 
so  proved,  not,  as  with  Calvin,  by  the  inward  witness 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  believing  reader,  but  by 
external  testimony  and  by  miracles,  especially  that 
crowning  miracle,  the  Resurrection.  The  New  Tes- 
tament, thus  attested  to  reason  as  divinely  in- 
spired and  authoritative,  in  turn  attests  the  truth  of 
the  Old  ;  and  the  purpose  of  the  Scriptures  is  to 
show  man  the  way  set  before  him  to  eternal  life. 
That   way    is  the  way  of  Christianity — the  way  of 


A  nil-  Trinitarians.  303 


obedience  to  divine  law.  Man  could  not  discover 
that  way  for  himself.  He  needed  God's  revelation. 
He  is  mortal  by  nature  and  not  in  consequence  of 
sin.  Christ  was  a  man,  but  a  man  who  enjoyed  in 
a  unique  degree  the  favor  of  God,  and  received  un- 
measured enduement  with  wisdom  and  power — a 
man  who  lived  a  life  of  unique  obedience,  to  whom 
God  therefore  gave  resurrection  and  exaltation  to  a 
delegated  divinity,  so  that  Christ  in  His  glory  is  now 
properly  an  object  of  worship  and  the  giver  of 
eternal  life  to  His  followers. 

More  wide-reaching  in  its  influence  upon  theology 
than  the  speculations  just  outlined  was  Fausto  Sozzi- 
ni's  attack  on  the  Anselmic  theory  of  the  Atonement 
which  the  divines  of  the  Reformation  age.  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  alike  accepted.  Satisfaction,  he 
held,  as  Duns  Scotus  had  maintained  long  before, 
is  no  demand  of  the  divine  nature,  such  as  Anselm 
had  conceived  it  to  be.  Forgiveness  and  satisfac- 
tion seemed  to  Fausto  Sozzini  contradictory  con- 
ceptions. Punishment  due  an  offender  cannot 
justly  be  borne  by  any  other  being.  Christ's  life 
and  death  are  no  compensation  to  God  for  human 
sin.  Christ's  obedience  was  no  more  than  was  due 
for  Himself,  nor  could  His  death  have  a  higher 
value  than  that  of  the  noblest  of  human  beings.  It 
reveals  God's  love.  It  was  necessary  in  order  that 
the  great  gift  of  resurrection  should  be  His.  It 
shows  the  Christian  how  he,  too,  should  be  ready 
for  sacrifice.  This  keen,  rationalistic  criticism  of 
one  of  the  main  doctrines  of  the  Church  was  not 
without    large    result.     In    the    extreme    Socinian 


304  The  Refomnation. 

form,  it  won  few  followers,  but  it  led  to  much 
modification  of  the  satisfaction  theory,  of  which 
modification  the  governmental  view  of  Atonement, 
presented,  in  1617,  by  the  eminent  Dutch  states- 
man and  Arminian  theologian,  Hugo  Grotius  (1583- 
1645),  was  the  most  conspicuous  example. 

In  the  Socinian  movement  and  its  influences, 
direct  and  indirect,  on  later  theology,  the  Protes- 
tantism of  Italy  had  its  most  lasting  result.  But  in 
the  home-land,  though  a  few  might  survive  a  brief 
time  in  hiding,  the  Protestants  had  ceased  to  be  a 
force  of  any  consequence  by  the  close  of  the  pontifi- 
cate of  Pius  V.  in  1572. 

In  turning  to  the  Netherlands,  a  land  is  once  more 
reached  where  the  population  was  largely  Teutonic 
and  where  the  revolt  from  Rome  ultimately  took 
strong  hold  on  a  great  section  of  the  population.  In 
Spain  and  Italy,  sympathy  with  any  phase  of  Prot- 
estantism was  felt  by  but  few.  In  France,  though 
the  Huguenots  were  to  become  a  power  in  the  state, 
their  numbers  were  always  far  less  than  those  of  the 
Catholics.  But  in  the  northern  portion  of  the 
Netherlands,  Protestantism  was  to  win  one  of  its 
most  signal  triumphs.  No  territories  in  Europe, 
save  the  states  of  northern  Italy,  were  so  prosper- 
ous at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  as  the 
seventeen  provinces  that  made  up  the  Netherlands 
and  that  came  to  Charles  V.  as  part  of  his  Burgun- 
dian  inheritance  on  the  death  of  his  father  in  1506. 
Rich  in  soil,  productive  in  manufacture,  active  in 
commerce,  the  land  was  one  of  prosperous  cities, 
well-to-do  people,  and  successful  industry  beyond 


The  Netherlafids.  305 


any  other  in  northern  Europe.  Its  southern  por- 
tion was  the  home  of  nobles  of  large  estates  and  in- 
fluence, while  its  northern  territories  were  more 
democratic  ;  but  both  in  the  north  and  the  south 
the  manufacturing  and  trading  cities  were  strong 
and  self-rehant.  Yet  no  district  of  Europe,  save 
possibly  Italy,  was  more  marked  by  local  distinctions 
or  by  that  poHtical  attitude  which  is  known  in  later 
American  history  as  that  of  "  states  rights."  Local 
independence  was  very  evident.  Neither  Church 
nor  State  was  strongly  centraHzed.  Religiously, 
the  land  had  been  influenced,  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, by  a  mystic  school,  of  which  Thomas  a,  Kem- 
pis  (i 380-1471)  is  the  best-known  representative. 
The  "  Brothers  of  the  Common  Life,"  though  in  no 
way  breaking  with  the  Roman  Church,  yet  promoted 
an  humble, heartfelt  piety  as  of  more  value  than  cere- 
monies. The  well-to-do  circles  in  the  land  had 
found  a  welcome  for  humanism  at  the  dawn  of  the 
sixteenth  century  ;  and  the  prince  of  trans-Alpine 
humanists,  Erasmus,  was  a  Netherlander  by  birth. 
But  the  people  of  the  Netherlands  as  a  whole  were 
neither  mystics  nor  humanists,  but  practical,  wide- 
awake commercial  and  manufacturing  folk,  religious 
without  asceticism  or  fanaticism,  averse  to  persecu- 
tion, and  strongly  tenacious  of  their  rights  and 
liberties. 

Though  promptly  condemned  by  the  theologians 
of  the  Netherland  University  of  Louvain  in  1520, 
and  by  Charles  V.,  the  ruler  of  the  land,  in  1521, 
Luther's  writings  were  circulated  with  immediate 
effect  in  the   Low  Countries.     They  won  devoted 


3o6  The  Refo7'mation. 

followers,  especially  among  his  fellow  Augustinian 
monks,  two  of  whom,  Hendrik  Voes  and  Jan  Erch, 
on  July  I,  1523,  were  burned  for  their  faith  at 
Brussels — the  first  martyrs  of  the  Lutheran  revolt. 
Charles  V.  was  much  better  able  to  translate  his 
hostility  toward  Protestantism  into  deed  in  the 
Netherlands  than  in  Germany,  and  a  long  series  of 
edicts  attested  at  once  the  spread  of  anti-Roman 
opinions  and  the  vigor  of  the  emperor  against  them. 
An  inquisitorial  council  was  established  by  Pope 
Clement  VII.  in  1524;  and  in  1550,  Charles  en- 
deavored to  introduce  the  Spanish  type  of  that 
spiritual  tribunal.  Though  the  number  of  execu- 
tions often  alleged  to  have  taken  place  under  his 
rule  is  probably  much  exaggerated,  there  can  be  no 
question  that  more  opponents  of  Rome  were  put  to 
death  during  the  reign  of  Charles  V.  in  the  Nether- 
lands than  in  any  other  portion  of  his  extensive 
dominions.  Yet,  though  Charles  tried  to  centralize 
the  administration  of  the  seventeen  provinces  and 
to  oppose  Protestantism  everywhere,  and  though  he 
was  much  more  able  to  enforce  his  will  in  the 
Netherlands  than  in  Germany,  local  independence 
and  aversion  to  persecution,  as  well  as  the  more 
tolerant  spirit  of  the  regents,  Margaret, the  emperor's 
aunt,  and  Maria,  the  emperor's  sister,  who  repre- 
sented the  absent  sovereign,  rendered  this  repres- 
sive policy  unequal  in  its  actual  severity  and  com- 
paratively inefificient.  Though  most  of  the  nobles 
were  unaffected,  the  opinions  of  the  conservative 
German  and  Swiss  reformers  won  much  hold  on  the 
people  ;    and  among  the  wage-earning  classes  the 


The  Netherlands.  307 

more  radical  conceptions  of  the  Anabaptists  found 
large  following  and  aroused  the  government  to 
fiercer  attempts  at  repression.  In  the  Netherlands 
as  a  whole,  as  the  reign  of  Charles  V.  drew  to  a 
close,  the  views  of  Calvin  rather  than  those  of  Lu- 
ther became  the  dominant  Protestant  type.  Trans- 
planted from  France  and  Geneva  to  the  Walloon 
provinces  of  the  south,  Calvinism  soon  gained  even 
more  influence  in  the  Dutch  provinces  of  the  north. 
Lutheranism  largely  disappeared  before  it  ;  and, 
in  1 561,  a  Walloon  disciple  of  the  Genevan  re- 
former, Guy  de  Bray,  as  has  already  been  said,  pre- 
pared a  strongly  Calvinistic  statement  of  belief,  the 
Belgic  Confession,  which,  with  some  later  modifica- 
tions, continues  one  of  the  symbolic  bases  of  the 
Reformed  Church  of  Holland,  and  of  its  daughter 
in  America,  to  this  day.  Yet,  though  Protestantism 
thus  grew  in  adherents  and  influence  in  the  Nether- 
lands, it  long  grew  slowly.  The  pressure  of  perse- 
cution upon  it  was  great.  When,  in  1562,  the 
Belgic  Confession  was  laid  before  the  Spanish  king, 
its  adherents  were  reckoned  only  one  hundred  thou- 
sand. But  already  the  policy  of  that  sovereign, 
Philip- II.,  was  forcing  the  Netherlands  toward  that 
semi-religious,  semi-political  revolt,  that  constitutes 
the  most  heroic  chapter  of  the  latter  half  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  This  revolt  instantly  strengthened 
the  Protestant  movement  ;  and  its  effect  was  to 
render  the  seven  northern  provinces  which  success- 
fully maintained  their  independence  permanently 
Protestant,  while  their  ten  southern  neighbors  re- 
mained in  the  spiritual  possession  of  the  papacy. 


3o8  The  Reformation. 

The  story  of  the  English  revolt  from  Rome  has 
been  told  in  another  volume  of  this  series,  and  has, 
therefore,  no  extended  place  in  the  present  nar- 
rative. It  may  be  proper,  however,  for  the  sake  of 
greater  completeness  of  survey,  to  recall  the  chief 
milestones  in  one  of  the  most  important  chapters  of 
the  history  of  the  Reformation  age.  As  has  already 
been  noted,  the  Scriptures  were  somewhat  widely 
read  in  England  during  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
the  Wiclifian  movement,  though  seemingly  crushed, 
continued  silently  to  work  to  a  moderate  extent 
among  the  common  people  of  eastern  England. 
Where  that  influence  reached,  it  made  easy  the 
thought  of  separation  from  Rome.  As  has  been 
pointed  out,  also,  humanism  did  its  preparatory 
work  in  England,  as  elsewhere  in  Latin  Christendom, 
and  the  names  of  Colet,  More  and  Erasmus  are  in- 
separably connected  with  the  broadening  of  English 
scholarship  at  the  dawn  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Wolsey,  and  even  Henry  VIII.  (king  1509-47),  his 
master,  would  have  been  glad  to  introduce  into 
England  a  reform  on  the  Spanish  model  of  Ximenes, 
though  without  the  Inquisition  ;  and  Wolsey  did 
something  in  the  spirit  of  Erasmian  humanism  for 
the  betterment  of  religious  institutions  and  the  ad- 
vance of  education.  Henry  VIII.  bitterly  opposed 
Luther,  and  thereby  won  from  the  pope  the  title 
"  Defender  of  the  Faith."  But  the  Roman  curia 
had  no  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  English  people, 
little  as  any  considerable  numbers  of  them  were 
inclined  to  Protestantism  of  doctrine,  till  after  the 
breach    with    Rome  had  become  an   accomplished 


England.  309 

fact.     England  for  Englishmen,  in  religion  as  well 
as  in   politics,  was  the  feeHng  of  the  great  mass  of 
the    people    in  the    early  years    of    Henry    VIII. 's 
reign.     It  was  on  this  national  spirit  that   Henry 
relied  when  his  own  failure  to  procure  from  Clement 
VII.  the  annulment  of   his  marriage  to   Catherine 
of  Aragon  led  him  to  break  with  Rome.     The  steps 
of    that   revolt  followed  in  rapid  succession.     The 
clergy  of  the  two  English  provinces  of  Canterbury 
and    York,   assembled    in   convocation,    were    com- 
pelled to  declare   Henry  the  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  1531.     The  next  year  Parlia- 
ment forbade  payments  of  annates  to  Rome.     The 
year  1533   saw  the   much-desired   conjugal   separa- 
tion granted  Henry  by  Henry's  just  appointed  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  Thomas   Cranmer.      In  1534, 
Clement  VII.  ordered  Henry  to  restore  Catherine 
and  threatened  him  with  excommunication.     The 
pope's  authority  was  now  abolished   by  royal  edict 
in  June,  1534  ;  and,  in  November  of  the  same  year, 
Parliament  declared  the  king  and  his  successors  "  the 
only  supreme  head  in  earth  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land," and  England  was  wholly  separated  from  the 
Roman  see.     The  year  1536  saw  the  dissolution  of 
the  smaller  monasteries,  and  the  confiscation  of  the 
larger  religious  houses  followed  in  1539-     '^^^  Bible 
was  issued   in   English  and  placed  in  English  parish 
churches  by  royal  authority.      Under  the  stress  of 
this  contest,  Henry  countenanced  some  approaches 
toward  the  Evangelical  positions  of  the  continental 
reformers;  but,  in    1539,  the   Law  of   Six  Articles 
afifirmed  the    more    characteristic  Roman  beliefs — 


3IO  The  Reformation. 

save  that  of  the  authority  of  the  pope — and  the 
king  never  was  at  heart  a  doctrinal  Protestant. 
Under  Henry,  three  parties  existed  in  England — 
a  small,  but  growing  Evangelical  party,  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  the  continental  reformers  of  the  Lu- 
theran school ;  a  small  Roman  party  that  desired 
the  continuance  of  papal  authority  ;  and  the  major-^ 
ity  of  the  nation,  of  which  the  king  was  fairly  rep- 
resentative, that  wished  little  doctrinal  change,  but 
was  ready  to  do  away  with  obedience  to  the  papacy, 
and  abolish  those  features  of  English  clerical  life 
which,  like  monasticism,  had  come  widely  to  be  re- 
garded as  abuses. 

With  the  accession  of  Edward  VI.  (king  1547-53) 
the  still  comparatively  small  party  in  sympathy  with 
continental  Protestantism  came  into  power,  and  there 
followed  the  publication  of  a  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  in  1549,  by  which  all  the  ordinary  parish 
service  was  transferred  from  the  Latin  to  the  Eng- 
lish tongue,  and  its  characteristic  Roman  features 
largely  abolished.  Under  the  growing  influence  of 
foreign  Protestants  in  England,  the  Book  was  re- 
vised in  1552";  and,  in  1553,  Forty-two  Articles  of 
Religion,  of  decidedly  Protestant  tone,  were  pro- 
claimed. But  the  barefaced  spoliation  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church  by  those  who  guided  the  counsels  of 
Edward  VL  and  those  who  followed  their  example 
brought  odium  upon  a  cause  that,  though  dear  to 
many,  was  used  by  others  as  a  cloak  to  their  own 
aggrandizement.  Under  Mary  (queen  1553-58)  the 
pendulum  swung  to  the  opposite  side,  and  the  small 
Roman  party  came  into  power  through  reaction  from 


England.  3 1 1 

the  excesses  of  the  previous   reign.      Though  for  a 
short   time  Mary  pursued  a  tolerant  policy,  the  ser- 
vices were  speedily  brought  back  to  the  Latin  cere- 
monial of  the  last  year  of  Henry  VIII.  The  vigorous 
restoration  of  Roman  Catholicism  soon    followed. 
In  November,  1554,  England  was  absolved  and  once 
more  accepted  the  Roman  obedience,  though  church- 
lands  confiscated  in  previous  reigns  remained  in  the 
possession  of  their  holders.      Mary's  reaction  might 
have  been  endurable  by  the  nation  had  she  not  now 
gone  on  to  persecution.   In  January,  1555,  the  work 
began.    Bishop  Hooper  of  Gloucester,  John  Rogers, 
prebendary  of  St.   Paul's,  London,  Hugh  Latimer, 
once  bishop  of  Worcester,  Bishop   Ridley  of  Lon- 
don, Archbishop  Cranmer,  and  about  two  hundred 
and   eighty  more  were  burned — the  most  frequent 
charge  on  which  their  execution  was  justified  being 
their   denial   of  the   doctrine  of  transubstantiation. 
These  executions,  though  few  compared  with  those 
of  the  Netherlands  or  of  Spain,  aroused  Protestant 
sympathies  among  the  people  of  England  as  nothing 
previous  had  done.     The  firmness  generally  evinced 
by  the  sufferers,  whom  the  people  widely  viewed  as 
innocent  victims  of  a  foreign  authority,  greatly  com- 
mended   the    Protestant    cause.      Even   before   the 
accession  of  Mary,  the  influence  of  Calvin  had  begun 
to  supplant  that   of    Luther   among   English   Prot- 
estants ;  and  the  welcome  that  fugitives  from  the 
Marian  persecutions  received  on  the  Continent  from 
Calvinists  generally,   and  most  of  all  from   Calvin 
himself — a  welcome  in  marked  contrast  to  their  re- 
jection by  the  Lutheran  cities  of  north  Germany 


312  The  Refor^nation. 

which  distrusted  their  views  on  the  nature  of  Christ's 
presence  in  the  Supper — gave  to  those  who  fled 
from  England  a  warmer  zeal  than  ever  for  the  doc- 
trine and  system  of  Geneva. 

The  accession  of  Elizabeth  (queen  15 58-1603) 
found  a  strong  minority  of  the  English  people 
Protestant,  and  the  returning  exiles  brought  home 
an  intenser  Calvinistic  Protestantism  by  reason  of 
their  continental  sojourn.  Between  all  the  distract- 
ing currents  of  English  religious  life  the  great  queen 
steered  her  difificult  course.  Without  religious  parti- 
sanship, almost  without  religious  feeling,  she  cared 
little  for  the  questions  that  fiercely  divided  Europe. 
She  was  too  much  her  father's  daughter  to  tolerate 
papal  authority  in  the  land.  She  saw  the  political  ad- 
vantages of  Protestantism  ;  but  she  opposed  the  re- 
formatory zeal  of  the  Puritans  quite  as  vigorously 
as  the  reactionary  attempts  of  the  Roman  Catholics. 
Though  the  Protestantism  of  the  nation  became 
more  intense  and  extensive  as  her  reign  went  on, 
and  the  Puritan  party  which  was  its  advance-guard 
therefore  steadily  grew,  Elizabeth  never  departed 
from  her  carefully  weighed  policy  of  comprehension, 
and  she  had  in  it,  especially  in  the  earlier  part  of 
her  reign,  the  support  of  a  decided  majority  of  the 
English  people.  Yet,  though  the  English  Church, 
as  it  came  from  the  Elizabethan  Reformation,  was  far 
more  a  compromise  Church  than  any  on  the  Conti- 
nent, its  leaders  and  the  continental  divines  alike 
throughout  the  great  queen's  reign  regarded  it  as 
one  of  the  foremost  members  of  the  Protestant  fam- 
ily ;  and  its  fellowship  with  the  continental  reform- 


England  and  Scotland.  313 

ers  of  the  Calvinistic  school  and  with  the  churches 
which  they  founded  was  hearty  and  ample.  Eng- 
land under  Elizabeth,  in  spite  of  contemporary 
Puritan  criticism  of  the  Elizabethan  Reformation 
as  inadequate,  and  of  later  High  Anglican  claim, 
was  politically  and  religiously  a  Protestant  land. 

England's  northern  neighbor,  Scotland,  passed 
through  very  different  experiences  from  those  that 
have  just  been  narrated  in  its  reformation-struggle. 
Politically,  the  land  for  two  centuries  before  the 
Reformation  was  torn  by  quarrels  between  the 
nobles  and  the  crown,  and  harassed  by  the  constant 
dread  of  conquest  by  English  diplomacy  or  arms. 
This  fear  led  Scotland  to  hold  close  with  England's 
chief  rival,  France.  During  the  great  papal  schism 
because  England  supported  the  Roman  claimant, 
Scotland  adhered  to  the  French  pretender  at  Avig- 
non. Under  James  I.  (king  1406-37)  Scotland  had 
a  ruler  of  high  abilities,  but  the  crown  was  weakened 
by  successive  minorities,  and  the  power  of  the  land 
broken  by  the  attacks  of  the  English  under  Henry 
Vni.  in  1 5 13  (Flodden  Field)  and  1542  (Solway 
Moss),  Though  unable  to  shake  off  English  ag- 
gression, these  defeats  made  Scotland  more  than 
ever  antagonistic  to  English  influence.  The  effect 
of  the  contest  which  ended  disastrously  at  Sol- 
way  Moss  was  ultimately  the  betrothal  of  James 
V.'s  infant  daughter  and  heir,  Mary  "Queen  of 
Scots,"  to  Francis,  heir  to  the  throne  of  France, 
and  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  decades  of  the  sixteenth 
century  Scotland  was  almost  a  French  province  and 
seemed  likely  so  to  remain  till  the  Reformation  tore 


314  The   Reformation. 


it  from  its  foreign  connection  and  put  it  on  the  path- 
\vay  of  modern  development. 

Commercially  and  industrially,  the  Scotland  of  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  poor  and 
backward  land.  Its  development  was  delayed  by 
feuds  between  Highlanders  and  Lowlanders,  by 
border  warfare,  and  by  internal  quarrels.  The  mon- 
archy had  attained  no  such  authority  as  in  Tudor 
England,  To  maintain  its  power  involved  constant 
struggle  with  a  turbulent  nobility.  The  external 
conditions  of  life  were  rude.  Learning  was  at  a  com- 
paratively low  ebb.  Yet  a  number  of  grammar 
schools,  largely  monastic  in  origin,  gave  a  fair  Latin 
training  to  those  who  sought  them.  But  though 
universities  destined  to  noble  service  had  been 
founded  at  St.  Andrews  in  141 1,  at  Glasgow  in  1450, 
and  at  Aberdeen  in  1494,  and  though  laws  of  James 
IV.  (king  1488-15 1 3)  ordered  nobles  and  rich  land- 
owners to  send  their  sons  to  these  grammar  schools 
and  universities,  humanism  gained  little  hold  on 
Scotland  before  the  Reformation.  Greek  was  not 
taught,  it  is  said,  till  1534,  and  Hebrew  not  till 
1560.  Many  Scots  visited  foreign  schools  of  re- 
nown, but  the  scholarly,  like  the  industrial,  condi- 
tion of  the  home-land  was,  as  a  whole,  undeveloped. 

The  Church  in  Scotland  shared  much  of  the  rude- 
ness and  disorder  of  the  national  life.  Though  prel- 
ates of  eminent  worth  honored  the  Scotch  Church, 
of  whom  James  Kennedy,  bishop  of  St.  Andrews 
from  I441  to  1465,  may  be  named  as  an  example, 
the  general  religious  tone  of  Scotland  was  low, 
judged  even    by  pre-Reformation  standards.     But 


Scotland.  315 

the  relative  wealth  and  political  importance  of  the 
clergy  was  great.  Half  the  lands  of  the  kingdom 
were  in  their  possession.  More  than  a  hundred  and 
twenty  religious  houses  devoted  some  of  the  fairest 
portions  of  the  land  to  the  support  of  Scottish  mo- 
nasticism,  and  the  power  of  the  high  clergy  so  nearly 
rivalled  that  of  the  great  lay  nobles  as  to  render  the 
opposition  between  these  clerical  and  lay  owners  of 
the  soil  often  intense,  and  to  cause  that  opposition 
to  become  one  of  the  prime  factors  in  the  struggle  by 
which  Scotland  was  torn  from  the  papal  obedience. 
Scotland  witnessed  little  religious  dissent  before 
the  Lutheran  movement  had  been  felt  on  the  Con- 
tinent with  power.  James  Resby,  a  Wiclifite,  had 
been  burned  at  Perth  in  1408.  Paul  Crawar  had  suf- 
fered a  like  fate  as  a  Hussite  at  St.  Andrews  in  1433. 
Some  Wiclifite  doctrine  may  have  found  permanent 
lodgment  in  Scotland.  But  these  anti-Roman  influ- 
ences were  unimportant.  The  first  significant  inva- 
sion of  dissent  came  with  the  teaching  of  Patrick 
Hamilton,  himself  the  first  martyr  for  the  Protestant 
faith  on  Scottish  soil.  Hamilton  (c.  1504-28)  was 
a  son  of  one  of  the  most  eminent  Scottish  noble 
families,  who  had  been  appointed  abbot  of  Feme 
when  but  thirteen  years  of  age,  and  became  a  student 
at  the  University  of  Paris.  There  he  passed  from  a 
zealous  Erasmian  humanism  to  adhesion  to  the  new 
views  which  Luther  was  proclaiming  ;  and,  in  1523, 
he  returned  to  Scotland  already  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  Roman  Church.  St.  Andrews  was  next  the 
scene  of  his  study  and  activity,  till  the  opposition 
of  Archbishop  James  Beaton  (?- 15 39)  induced  Ham- 


J 


1 6  T/ie  Reformation. 


ilton  to  go  to  Germany,  where  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Luther  and  Melanchthon  at  Wittenberg, 
and  was  especially  impressed  by  Francois  Lambert 
at  the  newly  instituted  Hessian  University  of  Mar- 
burg. But  his  stay  on  the  Continent  was  brief.  De- 
sire to  preach  the  new  truths  in  Scotland  was  strong 
upon  him.  He  returned  to  his  native  land  in  1527, 
labored  vigorously  and  persuasively  for  a  brief  time, 
but  was  soon  seized,  and  died,  amid  sufferings  of 
unusual  severity,  at  the  stake,  in  St.  Andrews,  on 
February  29,  1528. 

The  Lutheran  movement  on  the  Continent  was 
already  more  than  ten  years  old  when  Hamilton 
became  its  first  Scottish  martyr,  and  through  his 
example  or  by  direct  influence  from  Germany,  it 
soon  found  other  adherents  and  the  stake  other  vic- 
tims during  the  archiepiscopate  of  James  Beaton. 
Under  the  ecclesiastical  rule  of  James  Beaton's 
nephew  and  successor,  Cardinal  David  Beaton,  from 
1539  to  1546,  the  repression  of  Protestantism  was 
even  more  severe  ;  and  the  contest  was  much  em- 
bittered by  political  considerations — the  Protestants, 
who  had  become  considerably  numerous  by  I540> 
now  receiving  support  from  and  aiding  the  interests 
of  England,  which  had  torn  loose  from  Rome  under 
Henry  VHL,  and  even  some  assistance,  for  a  time, 
from  James  Hamilton,  earl  of  Arran,  who  became 
regent  on  the  death  of  James  V.  in  1542.  Cardinal 
Beaton  and  his  clerical  friends,  on  the  other  hand, 
eagerly  furthered  the  French  cause  in  the  struggle 
of  the  two  nations  for  influence  in  Scotland,  and 
soon  won  Arran  for  their  side.     In  Beaton,  the  pro- 


Scotland.  3 1 7 

posed  betrothal  of  Mary,  the  infant  heiress  of  Scot- 
land, and  Edward,  soon  to  be  king  of  England,  had 
its  chief  opponent.  A  conspicuous  victim  of  this 
partly  religious,  partly  political  contest  was  George 
Wishart  (i  5 1 3  ?-i  546).  A  fugitive  for  his  Protestant- 
ism, he  lived  in  exile  in  England  and  on  the  Conti- 
nent from  1538  to  1544  or  1545,  when  he  returned 
to  Scotland,  and  preached  with  much  success,  sup- 
porting at  the  same  time  the  English  interest.  Car- 
dinal Beaton  had  him  seized  and  burned  at  St. 
Andrews.  But  Wishart's  friends  took  their  ven- 
geance on  his  persecutor.  On  May  29,  1546,  about 
twelve  weeks  after  Wishart's  death,  the  cardinal  was 
murdered.  The  conspirators  who  had  wrought  this 
bloody  reprisal  now  defended  themselves  against  the 
regent,  the  earl  of  Arran,  with  the  countenance  of 
the  English,  in  the  castle  of  St.  Andrews,  where  a 
considerable  number  of  their  sympathizers  joined 
them,  after  hostilities  had  been  temporarily  sus- 
pended, among  whom  was  the  future  leader  of  the 
Scottish  Reformation,  John  Knox. 

No  figure  stands  out  more  sharply  in  Reformation 
story  than  that  of  the  powerful  man  just  named. 
Far  from  possessing  the  originality  and  genius  of 
Luther  or  of  Calvin  as  a  thinker,  he  was  like  Luther 
in  his  capacity  to  sway  men,  in  his  love  for  the  ver- 
nacular of  his  native  land,  and  in  his  passion.  He 
had  something  of  Calvin's  gifts  of  organization,  and 
he  was  also,  to  the  utmost  fibre  of  his  being,  typi- 
cal of  the  land  of  his  birth.  Intense,  religious,  argu- 
mentative, democratic,  fearless,  intolerant,  forceful, 
he  led  Scotland  as  no  other  man  in  its  history  has 


3 1 8  The    Reformation. 

done.  John  Knox  was  born  in  the  Giffordgate  dis- 
trict of  the  town  of  Haddington,  a  few  miles  east  of 
Edinburgh,  in  the  year  1505.  His  father,  William 
Knox,  was  in  humble  circumstances,  but  of  sufficient 
means  and  ambition  to  start  his  son  on  the  road  to 
an  education.  The  boy  passed  through  the  school 
at  Haddington,  and,  in  1522,  entered  the  University 
of  Glasgow  just  as  Luther  was  publishing  his  forma- 
tive translation  of  the  New  Testament.  Here  at 
Glasgow,  John  Major  (1469-15 50)  was  at  the  height 
of  his  fame.  A  scholastic  theologian,  Major  had 
imbibed  the  sentiments  of  the  leaders  of  the  great 
fifteenth  century  councils,  and  taught  the  superiority 
of  these  gatherings  of  the  universal  Church  over 
popes.  He  criticised  the  Roman  curia,  he  desired 
to  reduce  the  number  of  monks,  he  held  that  civil 
authority  was  derived  from  the  people,  who  could 
depose  and  even  execute  unjust  rulers.  Major  was 
far  removed  from  being  a  Protestant,  but  his  views 
undoubtedly  had  their  influence  in  arousing  Knox's 
critical  spirit  ;  and  Knox's  aversion  to  the  current 
scholastic  dialetics  and  theology  was  strengthened 
by  the  study  of  the  fathers,  particularly  of  Augus- 
tine. 

That  Knox  graduated  from  the  university  is  not 
assured  from  its  lists,  and  his  life  from  1523  to  1542 
is  very  obscure.  He  certainly  studied  law  and  prac- 
tised the  lawyer's  profession  in  and  about  Hadding- 
ton between  1 540  and  1 543.  He  plainly  was  in  minor 
orders  by  the  latter  date,  and  was  very  probably 
ordained  a  priest  ;  but  he  turned  aside,  alike  from 
the  law  and  from  the  Roman  clerical   career,  about 


John  Knox.  319 

1543,  probably  under  the  impulse  of  Evangelical 
convictions,  and  by  1544  was  a  tutor,  having  under 
his  care  several  young  sons  of  Lothian  families  of 
wealth  and  position.  Here  he  came  in  contact  with 
George  Wishart,  whose  ministry  and  death  have 
been  already  noted,  and  not  only  formed  the  warm- 
est of  personal  friendships  for  that  unfortunate 
Protestant,  but  was  greatly  strengthened  by  Wishart 
in  his  Evangelical  convictions.  Cardinal  Beaton's 
murder  by  John  and  Norman  Leslie,  partly  in  re- 
venge for  Wishart' s  martyrdom,  seemed  to  Knox  a 
just  judgment  of  God  ;  and  so  strong  had  his  Prot- 
estant sympathies  become,  that  by  Easter,  1547,  he 
joined  himself  with  his  pupils  to  those  defenders  of 
St.  Andrews  Castle  who  included  the  conspirators 
against  Beaton  and  who  maintained  their  independ- 
ence in  St.  Andrews,  with  English  sympathy,  after 
that  bloody  deed.  These  men,  favorable  politically 
to  the  predominance  of  English  influence  in  Scottish 
affairs,  and  inclined  religiously  to  radical  Protestant- 
ism, now  chose  Knox  their  minister — an  office  which 
he  accepted  and  entered  with  a  fiery  sermon  denun- 
ciatory of  the  papacy  and  all  its  works.  St.  Andrews 
was  greatly  stirred  by  his  vigorous  oratory ;  the 
Protestant  party  then  grew  apace,  and  Knox  now 
introduced  the  first  public  celebration  of  the  Supper 
according  to  Protestant  usage  in  Scottish  history. 

This  Protestant  and  English-sympathizing  move- 
ment which  thus  held  military  possession  of  St. 
Andrews,  though  not  without  considerably  numer- 
ous sympathizers  among  the  nobility,  who  had 
long  been  jealous  of  the  powers  and  possessions  of 


320  The  Reformation. 

the  clergy,  speedily  had  to  endure  direct  attack 
from  France,  whose  chief  partisan  had  been  cut 
down  in  the  death  of  Beaton.  A  French  force 
besieged  St.  Andrews  by  sea  and  land  in  July,  1547. 
No  help  came  from  England,  now  under  the  nominal 
rule  of  Edward  VI.  and  the  actual  control  of  the 
duke  of  Somerset,  and  the  castle  fell.  Knox  and 
his  fellow-Protestants  who  there  surrendered  were 
carried  to  France.  In  flagrant  breach  of  the  terms 
of  capitulation,  Knox  himself  was  confined  in  chains 
on  one  of  the  galleys  ;  and  during  the  summer  of 
1548  lay  a  prisoner,  nigh  unto  death,  in  his  floating 
jail,  off  the  coast  of  Scotland,  within  sight  of  the 
familiar  towns  and  steeples.  But  his  courage  was 
equal  to  any  trial,  and,  even  in  these  straits,  he 
confidently  believed,  and  made  others  believe,  that 
he  should  yet  preach  the  Reformation  in  his  native 
land. 

But  at  the  time  of  Knox's  imprisonment  the 
prospects  of  the  Evangelical  cause  in  Scotland 
seemed  slight.  Though  Somerset's  tardy  action 
had  allowed  St.  Andrews  to  fall,  he  was  anxious  to 
effect  the  ultimate  union  of  the  two  realms  by  the 
betrothal  of  the  youthful  Edward  VI.  of  England 
to  the  infant  Mary  "  Queen  of  Scots,"  to  be  fol- 
lowed in  due  time  by  marriage.  In  ordei  to  further 
the  plan,  Somerset  now  invaded  Scotland,  and  de- 
feated the  Scotch  with  great  slaughter  at  Pinkie,  on 
September  10,  1547.  But  the  effect  of  this  bloody 
victory  was  the  opposite  of  that  intended  by  Somer- 
set. The  Scotch  were  largely  united  in  embittered 
hostility  to  England.     Mary  was  sent  to  France  and 


Jolui  Knox.  321 

betrothed  to  the  heir  to  the  French  throne.  And 
because  England  was  now  Protestant,  the  anti- 
Protestant  party  in  Scotland,  which  was  at  the  same 
time  that  of  French  sympathy,  had  full  control  in 
the  land.  Knox,  who  was  released  from  his  French 
imprisonment  in  February,  1549,  found  it  wise  to 
preach  under  English  protection  at  Berwick  for  the 
next  two  years,  rather  than  to  return  to  Scotland  ; 
and  he  continued  in  England,  marked  as  always  by 
great  boldness  of  speech,  till  compelled  to  fly  to  the 
Continent  in  1554.  During  this  English  ministry, 
he  was  appointed  a  royal  chaplain,  and  offered  the 
bishopric  of  Rochester — a  preferment  which  he  re- 
fused, because  he  did  not  regard  the  English  Refor- 
mation as  complete. 

Yet  if  the  state  of  Scotch  politics  promised  little 
for  the  Evangelical  cause  in  the  year  of  Knox's 
captivity  and  Somerset's  invasion,  the  situation 
speedily  altered.  Sympathy  with  the  new  views 
continued  to  spread  among  the  nobles  and  the 
common  people.  The  Protestant  cause  gained  un- 
willing countenance  even  from  the  French  mother 
of  the  youthful  Mary  "Queen  of  Scots,"  Mary  of 
Guise,  the  widow  of  James  V.  Anxious  to  secure 
control  of  the  government  and  to  dispossess  the 
earl  of  Arran  of  his  regency,  she  had  to  depend  on 
the  aid  of  those  nobles  whose  Protestant  sympathies, 
no  less  than  their  political  opinions,  inclined  them 
to  oppose  Arran  and  his  half-brother.  Archbishop 
John  Hamilton  of  St.  Andrews.  With  their  aid,  she 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  regency  in  April,  1554. 
Moreover,  the  accession  of  Mary  Tudor  to  the  throne 


322  The    Reformation. 

of  England  in  1553,  involving  the  speedy  restoration 
of  papal  obedience  in  that  land,  favored  Scotch  Prot- 
estantism by  reason  of  the  disposition  then  charac- 
teristic of  the  hard-pressed  little  country  to  follow  a 
policy  opposite  to  that  which  England  pursued.  The 
result  was  that,  by  the  autumn  of  1555,  Scotch  Protes- 
tantism was  so  far  able  to  hold  up  its  head  that 
Knox  dared  to  return  from  his  continental  exile  to 
his  native  land.  After  his  departure  from  England, 
early  in  1 5  54, that  exile  had  been  passed  in  intercourse 
with  Calvin  at  Geneva,  and  in  the  charge  of  a  con- 
gregation of  English  refugees  at  Frankfort — a  min- 
istry that  proved  stormy  by  reason  of  Knox's 
opposition  to  some  ceremonies  enjoined  by  the 
English  Prayer-Book.  It  was  as  a  thoroughgoing 
Calvinist  that  he  now  returned  to  Scotland. 

Knox  now  found  a  wide  welcome  for  the  Evan- 
gelical opinions.  He  preached  at  Edinburgh,  and 
in  a  large  number  of  country-seats  of  men  of  po- 
sition, and  came  into  relations  with  three  youthful 
nobles  who  were  to  be  leaders  of  the  Protestant 
party — Lord  Erskine, afterward  earl  of  Mar,  and  Lord 
James  Stuart,  afterward  earl  of  Murray,  who  were 
later  to  be  regents  of  Scotland,  and,  also.  Lord 
Lome,  afterward  earl  of  Argyll.  He  had  the  hearty 
good-will,  also,  of  such  men  as  John  Erskine  of 
Dun  and  the  earl  of  Glencairn.  Knox  everywhere 
took  a  stand  of  most  determined  opposition  to  the 
old  Church,  denouncing  the  mass  and  denying  that 
men  of  Protestant  convictions  could  rightfully  be 
present  at  its  celebration.  But  though  largely  suc- 
cessful, persecution  threatened  his  work  ;  and  Knox 


John  Knox.  323 

felt  it  his  duty  to  accept  a  call  to  the  pastorate  of 
the  church  of  English  exiles  in  his  beloved  Geneva, 
whither  he  removed  in  the  summer  of  1556.  Here, 
at  Geneva,  he  remained,  in  intimate  association 
with  Calvin,  till  January,  1559.  From  thence  he 
published  earnest  tracts  in  furtherance  of  the  Scotch 
Reformation,  of  which  the  most  famous,  as  well  as 
the  most  annoying  to  Knox  later,  was  his  First 
Blast  of  the  Trumpet  Against  the  Monstrous  Regiment 
of  Women,  of  1558.  Moved  by  the  opposition  of 
Mary  Tudor  in  England,  Catherine  de'  Medici  in 
France,  and  of  the  regent,  Mary  of  Guise,  in  Scot- 
land, to  the  Evangelical  cause,  Knox  argued  that  no 
woman  could  rightfully  exercise  sovereignty — a  doc- 
trine for  which  Henry  VHI.  's  domineering  daughter, 
Elizabeth,  never  forgave  him. 

Though  Knox  was  absent  from  Scotland,  the 
Protestant  cause  in  that  land  was  rapidly  gathering 
strength.  The  Evangelical  nobles  urged  his  return. 
On  December  3,  1557,  largely  through  Knox's  in- 
fluence and  suggestion,  the  earl  of  Argyll,  Lord 
Lome,  the  earl  of  Glencairn,  John  Erskine  of  Dun, 
and  many  other  men  of  position  and  influence, 
signed  a  covenant  at  Edinburgh  pledging  them- 
selves "to  maintain,  set  forward,  and  establish  the 
most  blessed  Word  of  God  and  his  congregation" — 
from  which  these  leaders  of  the  now  fully  organized 
Protestant  party  obtained  the  nickname  of  the 
"Lords  of  the  Congregation."  This  Protestant 
tendency  among  the  nobles  was  much  strengthened 
by  their  fear  of  the  increasing  influence  of  France, 
and  the  consequent  loss  of  Scottish  independence, 


324  The  Reformation. 

owing  to  the  completion  of  the  long  betrothal  of 
Mary  "Queen  of  Scots"  by  her  marriage  to  the 
heir  of  the  French  throne  on  April  24,  1558.  The 
political  situation  was  further  complicated  when, 
on  the  death  of  Mary  Tudor,  in  November,  1558, 
Elizabeth  succeeded  to  the  English  throne — a  queen 
whom  the  Roman  party  held  to  be  illegitimate  as 
the  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn,  and  to  whom  many 
of  that  party  denied  all  right  to  rule.  If  Elizabeth 
was  not  justly  queen  of  England,  the  throne  un- 
doubtedly belonged  to  Mary  "Queen  of  Scots," 
who  immediately  asserted  her  claim,  and  that  claim 
became  all  the  more  threatening  when  Mary's  hus- 
band ascended  the  French  throne  as  Francis  II.  in 
July,  1559.  But,  though  threatening,  the  very  dan- 
ger of  the  political  situation  gave  strength  to  the 
Scotch  Protestant  party,  for  it  assured  the  support 
of  Elizabeth,  and  it  knit  together  all  those  who 
trembled  at  the  thought  of  a  union  of  France,  Eng- 
land and  Scotland  under  the  joint  sovereignty  of  a 
king  and  queen  of  strongly  Roman  tendencies. 
Matters  were  embittered  by  the  burning  of  the  aged 
priest,  Walter  Mylne,  for  his  Evangelical  opinions 
at  St.  Andrews,  in  April,  1558.  The  regent,  Mary 
of  Guise,  after  temporizing  with  the  "  Lords  of  the 
Congregation  "   regarding  ecclesiastical  reforms  in 

1558,  showed  her  policy  to  be  strenuously  Roman 
in  religion  and  French  in  politics.     By  the  spring  of 

1559,  Scotland  was  fairly  in  a  state  of  civil  war  ;  and, 
on  May  2,  Knox  arrived  at  Edinburgh,  to  find  him- 
self, as  he  wrote  in  a  contemporary  letter,  "  even  in 
the  heart  of  the  battle  " — a  battle  in  no  small  degree 


John  Knox.  325 

due  to  his  work.  From  Edinburgh  Knox  went 
immediately  to  Perth,  where  other  reformers  were 
assembled.  There  he  heard  that  the  regent  had 
declared  him  outlawed  and  was  proceeding  against 
the  Protestant  preachers.  Knox  replied  with  a 
fierce  denunciation  of  the  mass.  The  mob  rose, 
tore  the  images  from  the  church,  and  sacked  the 
monasteries  of  the  place.  Knox  thought  such 
action  too  riotous  ;  but  when  the  regent  proposed 
to  punish  the  offence,  he  declared  that  "she  was 
fighting  not  against  man,  but  God."  The  regent 
now  hurried  her  French  troops  to  the  scene,  and  the 
"Lords  of  the  Congregation"  appealed  to  arms; 
but  the  forces  were  so  nearly  equal  that  no  battle 
was  fought.  In  June,  Knox  and  his  innovating 
friends  were  in  St.  Andrews  itself,  and  there  the  re- 
former preached  in  defiance  of  the  archbishop  and 
at  no  little  peril  to  himself,  but  with  such  popular 
success  that  the  magistrates  and  people  stripped  the 
churches  and  destroyed  the  monasteries  of  the  an- 
cient episcopal  town.  By  the  end  of  June,  Knox 
and  the  "Lords  of  the  Congregation"  were  in 
Edinburgh,  where  the  townspeople  chose  him  min- 
ister, but  before  the  close  of  July  the  forces  of 
the  regent  compelled  him  to  leave.  Knox  now 
journeyed  about  Scotland,  winning  numerous  ad- 
herents for  the  Protestant  cause.  The  work  of 
reformation  was  carried  on  with  a  violence  greater 
probably  than  that  manifested  elsewhere  in  Europe. 
Monasteries  were  destroyed,  churches  sacked,  and 
the  nobles  hastened  to  put  themselves  in  possession 
of  the  church-lands,  so  that  the  Church  of  Scotland 


326  The  Reformation. 

speedily  became  as  poor  as  it  had  previously  been 
wealthy. 

Both  sides  now  had  armies,  that  of  the  regent 
being  largely  composed  of  French  mercenaries. 
But,  in  October,  1559,  the  reformers  felt  strong 
enough  to  declare  the  regent,  Mary  of  Guise,  sus- 
pended, and  to  lay  siege  to  her  forces  in  Leith.  An 
English  fleet,  urgently  sought  of  Elizabeth  by 
Knox  and  his  associates,  came  in  January,  1560,  to 
the  aid  of  the  Protestants,  and  an  English  army  in 
March.  In  June  following  the  regent  closed  her 
troubled  career  by  death  ;  and,  on  July  6,  a  treaty 
was  signed  at  Edinburgh  by  which  the  French  and  the 
English  forces  were  alike  to  be  withdrawn  from  the 
land  ;  the  government,  during  the  absence  of  Queen 
Mary,  was  entrusted  to  natives  of  Scotland,  and  a 
parliament  called  to  settle  the  affairs  of  the  king- 
dom. It  was  a  notable  Protestant  victory,  and  in 
no  small  degree  the  fruit  of  Knox's  own  indefati- 
gable labors. 

The  parHament  sat  from  the  ist  to  the  25th  of 
August,  1560,  and  its  work  was  radical  in  the  ex- 
treme. The  jurisdiction  of  the  pope  was  abolished, 
all  laws  favorable  to  Rome  or  hostile  to  Protestant- 
ism were  repealed,  and  death  was  threatened  for  a 
third  conviction  of  celebrating  the  mass.  The  old 
church  was  wholly  swept  away,  and  the  revolution 
was  political  no  less  than  religious.  Though  the 
king  and  queen,  then  absent  in  France — Francis 
and  Mary  "  Queen  of  Scots  " — were  asked  to  ratify 
these  acts,  the  people  of  Scotland  had  really  taken 
the  government  of  the  land   from  them  in  the  most 


The  Church  of  Scotland.  327 

vital  matters,  and  the  royal  refusal  to  approve  the 
acts  of  parliament  robbed  those  acts  of  no  real 
force.  Parliament  did  more  than  abolish  the  Roman 
obedience.  It  adopted,  on  August  17,  1560,  as  the 
doctrinal  standard  of  Scotland  a  Confession  drafted 
in  four  days  by  Knox  and  five  associates — though 
doubtless  representing  much  previous  thought  and 
study  on  the  part  of  the  Scotch  reformer.  This 
Confession  remained  the  lawful  standard  of  belief  in 
Scotland  till  1690, when  the  Westminster  Confession, 
which  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Scottish  Church 
had  approved  in  1647,  received  legal  sanction  in  the 
Revolution  settlement  under  William  and  Mary. 
Calvinistic  in  doctrine,  the  Confession  of  1560  found 
the  notes  of  the  Church  to  be  not  only  "  the  trew 
preaching  of  the  Worde  of  God"  and ''the  right 
administration  of  the  Sacraments,"  but  also  "ec- 
clesiastical discipline  uprightlie  ministered."  It 
affirmed  that  a  principal  duty  of  "Kings,  Princes, 
Rulers  and  Magistrates"  is  "for  maintenance  of 
the  trew  Religioun,  and  for  suppressing  of  Idolatrie 
and  Superstitioun  whatsoever."  Curiously  enough, 
in  view  of  the  later  history  of  Scotch  religious 
thought,  the  Confession,  while  declaring  that  "it 
becummis  al  things  to  be  done  decently  and  in  or- 
dour,"  added  :  "  not  that  we  think  that  any  policie 
and  an  ordour  in  ceremonies  can  be  appoynted  for 
al  ages,  times,  and  places."  It  was  to  be  Knox's 
great  successor  in  the  leadership  of  Scottish  thought, 
Andrew  Melville  (i  545-1622),  who  was  to  impress 
upon  Scotland  the  jure  divino  estimate  of  Presby- 
terianism. 


328  The  Reformation. 

Knox's  own  conception  of  what  the  constitution 
and  government  of  the  Scottish  Church  should  be 
was  worked  out  in  part  in  the  spring  of  1560,  and 
completely  drafted  immediately  after  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  memorable  parliament  of  August  of  that 
year.  With  the  assistance  of  other  ministers,  he  set 
forth  what  is  generally  known  as  the  **  First  Book 
of  Discipline" — the  "Book"  largely  prepared  by 
Andrew  Melville,  and  approved  by  the  General  As- 
sembly in  1578,  being  the  "Second."  According 
to  this  constitution,  the  Church  was  ordered  essen- 
tially on  the  Presbyterian  pattern  that  had  gone  forth 
from  Geneva,  with  "sessions"  of  ministers,  elders 
and  deacons  as  the  governing  body  in  each  local 
congregation  ;  with  stated  meetings  of  ministers  and 
educated  men  in  the  larger  towns,  which  soon  de- 
veloped into  "  presbyteries  ;"  with  district  "syn- 
ods" of  ministers  and  delegated  elders  ;  and  with 
the  national  "  General  Assembly  "  of  ministers  and 
delegated  elders  as  the  crown.  The  first  General 
Assembly  met  in  December,  1 560.  Yet  the  Gene- 
van system  was  modified  by  what  was  probably  de- 
signed to  be  a  temporary  expedient  analogous  to  the 
polity  of  Lutheranism — the  establishment  of  "super- 
intendents," each  charged  with  the  administration 
of  a  particular  district.  The  scarcity  of  educated 
Protestant  ministers  led  also  to  the  appointment  o\ 
devout  laymen  as  "readers"  and  "exhorters. "  By 
this  constitution  the  Church  became  essentially  self, 
governing  ;  and  its  officers  were  received  not  only  on 
examination  and  approbation  by  the  representative 
bodies  of  the  Church,  but,  after  due  election,  by  the 


The  Church  of  Scotland.  329 

people  whom  they  were  to  serve.  Could  Knox  and 
his  ministerial  associates  have  had  their  own  way, 
the  income  of  the  Roman  establishment  would  have 
been  devoted  to  schools,  church  expenses,  and  char- 
ity ;  but  here  they  were  frustrated  by  the  greed  of 
the  nobles.  This  opposition  and  hostility  to  the 
disciplinary  features  of  the  "  Book"  made  it  impos- 
sible to  secure  for  its  provisions  the  sanction  of  the 
civil  government,  but  the  model  sketched  therein 
was  that  essentially  to  which  Knox  succeeded  in 
moulding  the  Scottish  Church.  Saints'  days,  images, 
crosses,  organs  and  candles  were  done  away.  Pub- 
lic worship  was  ordered  on  the  model  of  that  of  the 
English  congregation  at  Geneva,  of  which  Knox  had 
been  pastor — a  liturgy  being  employed,  yet  with  even 
more  liberty  than  in  the  Calvinistic  service  of  Ge- 
neva for  the  minister  to  use  his  own  words  to  voice 
the  prayers  of  the  congregation.  In  1564,  this 
Genevan  form  of  worship  was  enlarged  into  a  Book 
of  Common  Order,  usually,  though  rather  mislead- 
ingly,  called  "Knox's  Liturgy." 

Thus,  before  the  close  of  the  year  1560, the  Scot- 
tish Church  had  taken  on  most  of  its  permanent 
characteristics.  Knox  himself  was  settled  in  that 
year  as  minister  at  Edinburgh.  But  the  ground 
which  he  had  won  had  yet  to  be  defended  in  fierce 
battle,  and  the  contest  began  when,  after  the  death 
of  her  husband,  Francis  II.  of  France,  in  December, 
1560,  the  widowed  Mary  "Queen  of  Scots"  re- 
turned, in  August,  1 561,  to  her  native  land,  deter- 
mined to  curb  what  she  deemed  rebellion,  to  restore 
the  Roman  obedience,  and  with  far-reaching  schemes 


330  The  Reformation. 


for  gaining  ultimate  possession  of  the  English  throne 
floating  before  her  fancy.  In  Knox  and  in  the  spirit 
which  he  had  nurtured  she  met  the  chief  stumbling- 
blocks.  The  battle  which  he  fought  was  waged  with 
weapons  of  invective  on  his  part  that  seem  coarse 
and  often  brutal,  his  bitterness  and  intolerance  are 
repulsive  to  our  altered  age,  but  that  battle  was 
none  the  less  one  for  popular  sovereignty  and  re- 
ligious freedom.  It  was  self-governing  Scotland 
against  an  unrepresentative  sovereign.  "  What  are 
you  in  this  commonwealth?"  asked  Mary  of  Knox 
in  1563.  "A  subject  born  within  the  same,"  he 
replied,  "and  though  neither  earl,  lord,  nor  baron, 
God  has  made  me  a  profitable  member."  When 
Mary  had  mass  celebrated  before  her  at  Holyrood 
on  the  Sunday  following  her  return,  Knox  affirmed 
that  "one  mass  was  more  fearful  to  him  than  ten 
thousand  armed  enemies  ;"  later  he  preached  no  less 
vehemently  against  the  frivolities  of  the  court,  and 
he  was  the  unsparing  public  opponent  of  her  Ro- 
manizing policy.  These  views  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  defend  boldly  to  her  face,  arguing  that  subjects 
may  rightfully  depose  a  ruler  who  opposes  the  Word 
of  God,  criticising  her  proposed  marriage,  and  speak- 
ing with  the  freedom  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  whom 
he  took  for  his  model. 

Yet  Knox's  success  was  greatly  facilitated  by 
Mary's  misdeeds  and  misfortunes,  and  had  her  per- 
sonal reign  in  Scotland  continued  as  it  began,  the 
story  of  the  struggle  might  have  been  very  different. 
At  her  coming,  Mary's  position  commanded  great 
sympathy.     A  widow  who  had  just  been  deprived 


Mary  Stnart.  331 

by  the  death  of  her  husband,  not  only  of  a  share  in 
one  of  the  proudest  thrones  in  Europe,  but  of  all  in- 
fluence on  French  affairs,  she  returned  to  her  own 
country  to  find  it  torn  from  the  ancient  faith  and  in 
the  hands  of  new  rulers.  Mary  acted  with  much 
shrewdness.  Though  she  had  her  own  Roman  wor- 
ship, she  did  not  openly  attack  Protestantism  ;  she 
professed  her  willingness  to  overlook  the  past  and 
her  affection  for  her  Scotch  subjects  ;  she  won  many 
friends  by  her  attractive  personality  and  cordial  man- 
ners ;  and  she  speedily  had  the  support  of  all  to 
whom  the  recent  radical  changes  in  religion  and  in 
politics  were  distasteful.  A  considerable  reaction 
began. 

But  whatever  outward  compliance  Mary  assumed 
in  matters  that  lay  beyond  her  power  to  alter,  she 
never  swerved  from  her  purpose  to  secure  the  Eng- 
lish throne  in  addition  to  that  of  Scotland,  either 
before  or  after  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  and  to  rule 
as  a  Roman  Catholic  sovereign.  To  this  end  she 
labored  to  secure  English  recognition  as  Elizabeth's 
heir.  To  this  end,  also,  she  entered  into  negotia- 
tions, in  1563,  looking  toward  her  marriage  with 
Don  Carlos,  the  crown  prince  of  Spain.  Mary's 
French  relatives,  the  Guises,  frustrated  the  hoped- 
for  match  out  of  fear  of  political  injury  to  France  ; 
and  Mary  then  turned  her  thoughts  to  marriage 
with  Henry  Stuart,  Lord  Darnley — the  next  heir  to 
the  English  throne  should  Mary  die.  It  was  not 
love  so  much  as  politics  that  dictated  the  match, 
for  not  only  did  it  better  Mary's  prospects  of  be- 
coming Elizabeth's  successor,  but  Darnley,  though 


332  The  Reformation. 

a  Protestant,  had  the  favor  of  the  English  Roman 
party,  by  whom  Elizabeth  was  opposed.  Earl  Mur- 
ray and  others  of  the  Protestant  lords  rose  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  queen,  and  called  on  Elizabeth  for  help, 
which  she  did  not  grant  ;  but  on  July  29,  1565,  the 
marriage  with  Darnley  took  place,  and  Mary  speedily 
put  down  all  armed  resistance.  To  Mary  the  time 
now  seemed  favorable  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Roman  obedience,  and  as  a  step  in  ridding  herself 
of  dependence  on  the  Protestant  Scotch  nobility, 
she  now  made  prominent  among  her  advisers  an 
Italian  favorite,  David  Rizzio.  But  the  weak  and 
jealous  Darnley  was  easily  led  by  the  disaffected 
nobles  into  a  conspiracy  against  the  supplanting 
Catholic  foreigner,  and  Rizzio  was  murdered  on 
March  9,  1 566.  This  murder  led  to  an  open  rupture 
between  Mary  and  Darnley — a  cleft  which  was  not 
healed  even  by  the  birth  of  their  son,  James  VI., 
later  to  be  James  I.  of  England,  on  the  19th  of  the 
following  June.  On  February  10,  1567,  Darnley  him- 
self was  murdered — with  what  degree  of  connivance 
on  Mary's  part  has  been  ever  since  one  of  the  battle- 
grounds of  historic  discussion.  The  bad  matter  was 
speedily  made  worse  by  Mary's  assent  to  her  own 
abduction  by  one  of  the  chief  participants  in  Darn- 
ley's  death,  James  Hepburn,  earl  of  Bothwell,  in 
the  April  following  her  husband's  murder,  and  her 
marriage  to  Bothwell  on  May  15th  of  the  same  year. 
Though  Mary  was  married  by  the  Protestant  rite 
and  allowed  action  against  further  Roman  worship, 
the  marriage  was  too  odious,  the  queen  too  much 
distrusted,  and  Bothwell  too  thoroughly  hated,  to 


Mary  Stuart.  333 

allow  the  toleration  of  the  existing  state  of  affairs 
by  the  great  nobles  of  Scotland.  On  June  15,  1567, 
Mary  became  a  prisoner  in  their  hands,  and  Bothwell 
only  saved  himself  by  flight.  The  captive  queen 
was  forced  to  abdicate,  on  the  24th  of  the  fol- 
lowing July,  in  favor  of  her  infant  son,  James  VI., 
and  of  a  regency  to  be  administered  by  her  half- 
brother,  the  earl  of  Murray,  the  most  eminent  lay- 
leader  of  the  Protestant  party.  But  Mary  had  by 
no  means  abandoned  the  aims  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  which  she  had  so  long  struggled.  On  May  2, 
1568,  she  escaped  from  her  imprisonment  at  Loch- 
leven  ;  and,  thanks  to  the  support  of  the  noble  house 
of  Hamilton,  she  soon  had  an  army  of  six  thousand. 
Yet  she  met  defeat  at  the  hands  of  Murray  eleven 
days  after  her  escape,  and  fled  to  England,  to  cast 
herself  on  the  mercy  of  Elizabeth,  only  to  remain  in 
that  land  a  scheming  prisoner,  the  hope  of  English 
Catholics  and  the  fear  of  English  Protestants,  till 
her  execution  at  Fotheringay,  as  a  conspirator 
against  Elizabeth,  on  February  8,  1587. 

With  the  passing  of  power  from  the  hands  of 
Mary  in  Scotland,  Protestantism  in  that  land  was 
fairly  secure,  though  its  dangers  were  not  wholly 
past  so  long  as  Mary  lived.  The  Scottish  parlia- 
ment following  her  abdication  in  1567  gave  full  legal 
status  to  the  Protestant  Church  of  Scotland,  which 
thus  became  by  law  established.  But  the  turbulent 
condition  of  Scotch  politics,  religious  and  secular, 
continued.  The  regent,  Murray,  who  seems  to  have 
deserved  his  popular  title,  "the  Good,"  fell  by  an 
assassin's  shot  on  January  23,  1570.      The  earl  of 


334  ^-^^  Reformation. 

Lennox,  who  succeeded  him,  met  a  similar  fate  in 
September  of  the  following  year.  The  next  regent, 
the  earl  of  Mar,  lived  only  till  the  autumn  of  1572, 
when  he  was  followed  by  the  earl  of  Morton.  On 
the  day  of  Morton's  appointment,  November  24, 
John  Knox  died.  Till  October,  1570,  when  he  suf- 
fered partial  disablement  by  reason  of  an  apoplectic 
stroke,  Knox  had  been  foremost  in  urging  the  more 
positive  and  radical  features  of  the  Scottish  Refor- 
mation. He  had  denounced  Mary's  furtherance  of 
Romanism  and  her  personal  misdeeds  with  the  ut- 
most plainness  of  speech,  and  he  pursued  her  with 
unbending  hostility  as  the  chief  enemy  of  the  land. 
His  had  been  the  largest  popular  following  and  the 
chief  instrumentality  in  the  establishment  of  Scotch 
Protestantism.  From  his  paralytic  seizure  he  la- 
bored on  with  something  of  his  old  fire  till  shortly 
before  his  death.  He  saw  and  took  part  in  the  be- 
ginnings of  that  long  struggle  with  "Prelacy" — 
that  is,  between  pure  Presbyterianism  and  any  form 
of  Episcopacy — that  was  not  to  be  ended  till  1690. 
To  some  extent  he  was  a  disappointed  man  in  his 
last  days.  He  failed  to  bring  about  much  that  he 
desired  in  the  reformation  of  the  Church,  and  es- 
pecially of  education.  He  saw  many  plans  frus- 
trated, as  he  believed,  by  the  greed  and  unspiritual- 
ity  of  the  nobles.  But  when  he  died  at  Edinburgh 
it  was  in  the  fulness  of  an  accomplished  work  of 
vast  dimensions  ;  and  no  more  fitting  characteriza- 
tion was  ever  spoken  of  him  than  the  often-quoted 
words  of  Regent  Morton  at  his  grave  :  "  Here  lies 
one  who  never  feared  the  face  of  man.*' 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   MORE   RADICAL   REFORMERS. 

|T  has  already  been  pointed  out,  in  con- 
nection with  the  radical  movements 
that  preceded  and  found  their  expres- 
sion in  the  Peasants'  War  of  Germany 
and  the  rise  of  the  Anabaptists  of 
Switzerland,  that  to  many  the  Reformation  as 
guided  by  Luther  and  Zwingli  seemed  but  a  half- 
accomplished  task.  To  the  thinking  of  these  radi- 
cals, the  reformers  just  named  were  the  foes  rather 
than  the  friends  of  a  thorough  purification  of  the 
Church.  The  reverence  paid  by  Luther  and  Zwingli 
and  their  associates  to  civil  rulers,  their  retention 
of  rites  such  as  infant  baptism,  their  deference  to 
the  letter  of  the  Scripture,  their  inclusion  of  all 
non-excommunicate  inhabitants  of  a  country  in  its 
State  Church,  seemed  to  one  element  or  another  of 
these  radicals  incompatible  with  any  complete  and 
praiseworthy  reform.  As  in  all  movements  which 
profoundly  stir  men,  the  more  moderate  party  of 
the  spiritual  revolution  was  accompanied  by  many 
groups,  of  most  varying  shades  of  opinion,  having 
little  affinity  one  with  another,  but  each  more  ex- 
treme than  it  in  breaking  with  the  heretofore  estab- 
lished orthodoxy. 

335 


^^6  The  Refor^natzon. 

The  question  of  the  exact  origin  and  ancestry  of 
these  more  radical  manifestations  of  the  revolution- 
ary spirit  is  difficult  and  controverted.  To  some 
investigators  it  would  seem  that  these  radicals  were 
simply  the  survivals  of  Evangelical  mediseval  sects, 
with  whom  Luther  stood  at  first  in  spiritual  af^nity 
and  from  whom  he  fell  away  in  the  direction  of  a 
less  spiritual  dependence  on  the  State  and  an  in- 
sistence on  a  rigid  doctrinal  system.  Others  can 
see  in  these  movements  but  the  extreme  radical 
outlappings  of  the  waves  started  by  the  Wittenberg 
and  Swiss  reformers.  For  either  of  these  positions 
many  arguments  may  be  urged.  Certain  it  is  that 
much  popular  criticism  of  mediaeval  Romanism  per- 
sisted, in  Waldensian  opinions,  in  the  views  of  the 
German  and  Dutch  mystics,  in  the  ascetic  and  often 
chiliastic  beliefs  of  the  stricter  Franciscans,  and 
affected  the  religious  thinking  of  many,  especially 
of  the  lower  orders  of  Germany,  Holland  and 
Switzerland,  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. And  it  seems  plain,  too,  that  Luther  was 
gradually  led  by  stress  of  conflict  and  fear  of  fanati- 
cism to  look  upon  his  reform  less  as  simply  a 
revival  of  heart-piety  and  more  as  the  establishment 
of  a  purified  and  state-defended  dogmatic  system. 
Luther  owed  much  to  the  mystics  and  to  the  more 
Evangelical  of  mediaeval  leaders  like  Bernhard  ;  but 
Luther's  work  was  far  too  profoundly  and  originally 
his  own  to  make  it  possible  to  identify  him  with  any 
stream  of  mediaeval  Evangelical  tendency.  That 
work  so  stirred  Germany  as  to  render  it  everywhere 
a  creative  and  transforming  source  of  impulse. 


Origin  of  the  Radicals. 


The  truth  seems  probably  to  be  that  the  original 
motive  cause  of  these  more  extreme  Reformation 
movements  came  from  the  great  leaders  of  the  Sax- 
on and  the  Swiss  revolts  ;  but  that  in  many  quar- 
ters more  or  less  latent  anti-Roman  beliefs  inherited 
from  an  earlier  time  modified  the  views  of  those 
who  were  thus  stirred  to  active  revolt  from  Rome. 
They  read  their  fresh  German  Testament,  they  in- 
terpreted the  new  Evangelical  preaching,  in  the 
light  that  came  from  Waldensian  asceticism,  from 
mystic  indifference  to  formal  dogma,  and  from  chil- 
iastic  and  separatist  ideals  of  the  Christian  life  born 
in  an  older  day.  But  though  in  many  things  thus 
representative  of  earlier  tendencies,  these  extremer 
movements  were  even  more  children  of  the  six- 
teenth century  Reformation.  They  were  called 
into  being  by  it.  They  were  not  demonstrably  in 
organic  continuity  with  the  mediaeval  anti-Roman 
sects.  They  sought  an  individualism  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  truth  and  a  spiritual  freedom  of  which 
the  middle  ages  had  little  conception. 

These  qualities,  characteristic  of  many  of  the  ex- 
tremer movements  of  the  sixteenth  century,  are 
conspicuously  illustrated  in  the  most  influential  and 
widespread  of  them  all — that  of  the  Anabaptists. 
The  origin  of  this  numerous  party  has  already  been 
spoken  of  in  narrating  the  early  work  of  Luther  and 
the  reformatory  efforts  of  Zwingli.  It  was  then 
pointed  out  how  the  radicals  of  northern  Germany 
broke  with  Luther  in  1522,  and  how  a  somewhat 
similar  division  occurred  in  Ziirich  and  its  vicinity 
less  than  two  years   later.     It  was  noted  that  the 


338  The  Reformation. 

Zurich  government  began  the  forcible  repression  of 
the  Anabaptists  by  1525;  and  in  January,  1527,  put 
Felix  Manz  to  death  for  his  faith.  Repressed  with 
iron  hand  in  Switzerland,  they  speedily  spread 
throughout  southern  Germany,  the  Tyrol,  and  Aus- 
tria. Augsburg,  where  the  mystic,  Hans  Denk,  and 
the  fanatic,  Hans  Hut,  labored  ;  Strassburg,  where 
Capito  was  for  a  time  almost  won  over  to  the  Ana- 
baptist position,  and  where  Denk  and  many  others 
preached  ;  the  Tyrol,  where  Georg  Blaurock  and 
Jacob  Huter  spread  wide  the  Anabaptist  faith  ;  and 
Moravia,  where  the  noble  Balthasar  Hubmaier,  and 
afterward  Jacob  Huter,  found  large  following,  be- 
came for  a  time  largely  permeated  by  Anabaptist 
beliefs.  Nuremberg,  Passau,  Regensburg,  Salz- 
burg, Linz  and  Vienna  all  had  their  circles  of  ad- 
herents. These  radicals  came  largely  from  the 
lower  orders,  especially  the  city  artisans  ;  but  they 
were  not  without  a  considerable  admixture  of  men 
of  position  and  education.  Grebel  was  of  a  patri- 
cian family  of  Zurich,  Manz  a  Hebrew  scholar  of 
talent,  Hubmaier  a  teacher  in  the  university  at  In- 
golstadt  and  a  cathedral  preacher  at  Regensburg, 
Denk  served  as  rector  of  St.  Sebaldus's  school  at 
Nuremberg,  and  Goschel  had  been  suffragan  bishop 
of  Olmiitz.  Many  others  prominent  among  the 
Anabaptists  were  men  of  education.  But  persecu- 
tion everywhere  followed  them.  The  Reichstag  of 
Speier,  in  1529,  called  on  all  in  authority,  whether 
Protestant  or  CathoHc,  to  put  them  to  death.  Their 
leaders  fell  rapidly.  Denk  died  of  the  plague  in 
1527,  Hut  perished  the  same  year  in  prison,  Hub- 


The  Anabaptists.  339 

maier  was  burned  at  Vienna  in  1528,  strenuously 
denying  the  right  of  the  magistrate  to  interfere  in 
matters  of  belief,  and  anticipating  by  more  than  a 
century  Roger  Williams's  doctrine  of  ''soul-lib- 
erty," Blaurock  was  burned  in  the  Tyrol  in  1529, 
and  Huter  suffered  a  like  fate  in  the  same  land  in 

1535. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  ascribe  anything  like  a 

compact  system  of  belief  to  these  early  Anabaptists; 
but  in  some  things  there  was  a  very  general  agree- 
ment. They  rejected  infant  baptism.  They  limited 
the  rite  to  those  who  could  receive  it  with  repent- 
ance and  faith.  They  held  that  the  Christian  believers 
of  a  local  community  should  separate  from  their 
unbelieving  associates,  and  that  these  local  groups 
of  Christians  should  choose  their  own  officers  and 
administer  their  own  discipline.  They  regarded  the 
New  Testament  as  a  "  new  law,"  and  hence  they 
were  seldom  willing  to  admit  Luther's  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith  alone  as  he  taught  it.  To  them, 
as  to  the  mediaeval  sects,  an  external  and  ascetic 
imitation  of  the  life  of  Christ  seemed  a  main  element 
in  the  Christian  ideal.  They  very  generally  rejected 
oaths,  and  they  largely  held  that  though  magistrates 
were  a  necessity  for  the  unbelieving,  the  Christian 
was  under  another  law  than  that  of  the  sword  and 
could  neither  accept  judicial  ofifice  nor  engage  in 
military  service.  Many  taught  community  of  goods  ; 
though  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  so  eminent 
an  Anabaptist  leader  as  Hubmaier  joined  neither  in 
this  denunciation  of  magistrates  nor  this  opposition 
to  private  property.  All  rejected  the  State-supported 


;40  The  Reformation. 


and  all-inclusive  Evangelicalism  of  the  Saxon  and 
Swiss  reformers,  no  less  than  Roman  Catholicism, 
as  worldly  and  un-Biblical  in  organization  and  spirit. 
Here,  therefore,  intermingled  with  many  mediaeval 
ideas  of  reform,  were  some  thoughts  anticipatory  of 
the  beliefs  of  the  more  modern  Baptists,  Congrega- 
tionalists  and  Quakers.  In  these  teachings,  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  Church  as  made  up  of  local,  self- 
governing  congregations  composed  of  professed  and 
experimental  disciples  of  Christ;  of  the  Bible  as  the 
only  rule  of  Christian  organization  as  well  as  of  Chris- 
tian faith;  of  baptism  as  a  rite  for  believers  only;  of 
war  and  of  oaths  as  forbidden  to  the  Christian,  were 
made  emphatic.  The  cleft  between  them  and  the 
State-churchism  of  the  more  conservative  reformers 
was  too  deep  to  be  bridged  by  any  possibiUty. 

As  persecution  had  been  the  means  of  spreading 
the  Anabaptists  from  Switzerland  through  southern 
Germany  and  Austria,  so  its  continuance  in  those 
lands  extended  them  rapidly  over  northern  Germany 
and  Holland.  In  the  last-named  country,  especially, 
Anabaptist  beliefs  worked  powerfully  among  the 
lower  orders.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  Ana- 
baptists of  all  these  regions  were  quiet  and  simply 
religious,  though  prevailingly  ignorant,  people  ;  but 
intermingled  with  them  were  representatives  of  a 
fanatic  tendency  such  as  had  been  manifested  by 
Thomas  Miinzer,  himself  hardly  to  be  classed  as  an 
Anabaptist,  in  the  Peasants'  War.  Persecution  and 
the  consequent  death  of  many  of  the  wiser  leaders 
of  the  Anabaptist  movement  strengthened  this 
chiliastic  fanaticism.     Men  readily  believed  that  a 


The  Anabaptists.  341 

cause  which  human  opposition  rendered  so  hopeless, 
and  yet  which  seemed  to  them  that  of  the  Gospel, 
must  triumph  by  divine  intervention.  The  Lord's 
coming  and  the  visible  reign  of  the  saints  must  be 
at  hand. 

Such  a  fanatic  leader  of  the  Anabaptists  appeared 
in  Melchior  Hofmann.  A  furrier  by  occupation,  he 
was  without  other  education  than  that  derived  from 
extensive  acquaintance  with  the  Bible — the  prophet- 
ical portions  of  which  had  for  him  a  special  fascina- 
tion. Eagerly  embracing  Lutheranism,  he  served  as 
its  apostle  in  a  stormy  evangelism  in  the  Livonian 
cities  of  Wolmar,  Dorpat  and  Riga  from  1523  to 
1525,  enjoying  for  a  time  the  approval  of  Luther 
himself.  But  he  soon  became  marked  as  an  extrem- 
ist, and  was  driven  successively  from  Livonia, 
Sweden  and  Holstein.  Embracing  Zwingli's  views 
of  the  Supper,  he  found  refuge  in  Strassburg  in 
1529,  and  here  became  fully  an  Anabaptist.  Peculiar 
views  as  to  Christ's  human  nature  involving  a  denial 
that  it  was  derived  from  the  Virgin,  and  interpre- 
tations of  the  Apocalypse  that  represented  the  visi- 
ble reign  of  Christ  as  to  begin  in  1533,  combined 
with  claims  to  prophetic  divine  guidance  in  inducing 
the  Strassburg  authorities  to  oppose  him  ;  and,  from 
1530  to  1533,  he  preached  with  great  popular  follow- 
ing in  Friesland  and  Holland.  Here  he  was  regarded 
by  many  as  a  prophet,  and  he  seems  sincerely  to 
have  credited  the  assertion  of  one  of  his  followers 
that  after  enduring  a  half  year  of  imprisonment 
at  Strassburg,  he  should  make  that  city  the  centre 
of  the  millennial  dispensation  from  which  an  hun- 


342  The  Reformation. 

dred  and  forty-four  thousand  missionaries  should 
go  forth  to  convert  the  world.  To  Strassburg,  there- 
fore,  he  went,  and  was  duly  imprisoned  in  1 533, which 
he  believed  to  be  the  dawning  time  of  the  new  dis- 
pensation ;  and  in  prison  he  lay  till  death  opened 
the  door  ten  years  later. 

It  was  from  among  the  disciples  of  Hofmann's 
fruitful  propaganda  in  the  Netherlands  that  the 
movement  went  forth  which  was  to  bring  to  the  Ana- 
baptists of  continental  Europe  their  almost  over- 
whelming disaster  in  the  fanatic  episode  of  the  Miin- 
ster  kingdom.  Jan  Mathys,  a  baker  of  Haarlem, 
announced  a  few  months  after  Hofmann's  imprison- 
ment had  begun,  that  he  himself  was  the  prophet 
Enoch  whom  Hofmann  had  foretold  would  appear 
immediately  prior  to  the  final  judgment.  The  claim 
found  wide  acceptance,  and  nowhere  so  much  as  at 
Miinster  in  Westphalia — a  city  which,  though  the 
see  of  a  Roman  bishop,  had  passed,  largely  under 
the  leadership  of  the  bishop's  chaplain,  Bernt  Roth- 
mann,  from  Lutheranism  through  Zwinglianism,  by 
1533,  to  Anabaptist  sympathies.  Though  opposed 
by  the  bishop  and  the  aristocracy  of  the  city,  Roth- 
mann  had  the  warm  support  of  many  of  the  common 
people,  led  by  a  democratic  social  reformer,  Bernt 
Knipperdolling.  Here,  then,  there  seemed  to  the 
followers  of  Mathys  to  be  a  city  that  might  serve  as 
the  earthly  New  Jerusalem  ;  God  having  rejected 
Strassburg,  they  affirmed,  by  reason  of  the  unbelief 
of  its  inhabitants.  To  Miinster,  Mathys  sent  his 
fellow-fanatic,  Jan  Beuckelssen,  known  as  John  of 
Leyden,  early  in  1534,  whither  Mathys  himself  and 


The  M mister   Tragedy.  343 

hundreds  of  Netherlandish  and  German  Anabaptists 
speedily  followed.  Rothmann  and  Knipperdolling 
were  carried  away  by  the  new  prophets  ;  and  these 
prophets,  far  from  sympathizing  with  the  patience 
with  which  Hofmann  was  willing  to  wait  for  the  ful- 
filment of  what  he  believed  to  be  God's  promises, 
appealed  to  arms  to  establish  the  visible  kingdom 
of  God  by  force.  They  soon  wrung  toleration  from 
the  Miinster  authorities,  while  immigrating  fellow- 
believers  constantly  swelled  the  ranks  of  their 
followers.  In  February,  1534,  Knipperdolling  was 
chosen  burgomaster,  and  the  Anabaptists  had  plainly 
the  upper  hand.  The  "godless" — that  is,  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  Anabaptists — were  speedily  driven  from 
the  city  by  prophetic  command.  A  communistic 
distribution  of  property  was  instituted  and  polygamy 
preached.  The  city  was  affirmed  to  be  under  the 
rule  of  God  through  his  prophets,  and  to  be  but  the 
starting-point  in  the  spread  of  the  divine  kingdom 
over  the  earth. 

But  the  expelled  inhabitants  of  Miinster  appealed 
to  the  orderly  elements  of  northern  Germany,  Ro- 
man and  Protestant  alike.  By  May,  1534,  the  bishop 
had  hemmed  the  city  fairly  in  with  an  army  that 
ultimately  included  supporters  and  opponents  of 
the  papacy.  The  defence  was  heroic.  Mathys  died 
in  battle,  and  was  succeeded  as  head-prophet  by 
John  of  Leyden,  who  was  soon  proclaimed  king  by 
divine  appointment.  As  the  siege  grew  more  har- 
assing the  fanaticism  of  the  beleaguered  Anabap- 
tists increased.  Books  were  burned.  A  code  of 
laws  drawn   from  the   Pentateuch  was  introduced. 


344  ^'^^^  Reformation. 

Twelv3  "elders"  formed  the  court  of  justice. 
Those  who  opposed  them  or  the  king  were  "  rooted 
out  from  among  the  people  of  God  "  by  the  execu- 
tioner. The  king  took  such  wives  as  he  chose,  and 
every  woman  was  compelled  to  own  some  one  as 
her  husband.  No  greater  exhibition  of  perverted 
religion,  despotism  and  sensuality  could  be  con- 
ceived. But  the  end  came  with  the  capture  of 
Munster  on  June  24,  1535,  the  death  of  Rothmann 
in  the  storming  of  the  city,  the  massacre  of  many 
of  its  defenders,  the  execution  by  savage  torture  of 
King  John  and  Knipperdolling,  and  the  exclusion 
from  Munster  of  any  form  of  opposition  to  Rome. 
For  the  Anabaptist  cause  the  Munster  episode  was  a 
terrible  catastrophe.  Though  the  fanatics  who  there 
misruled  were  really  representative  of  a  relatively 
small  portion  of  the  Anabaptists,  they  were  taken  to 
be  typical  of  all ;  and  Miinster  was  held  up  for  three 
centuries  as  illustrative  of  what  the  Anabaptists 
would  be  could  they  once  get  the  upper  hand.  Only 
with  the  last  few  decades  has  a  kindlier  judgment 
regarding  the  movement  as  a  whole  won  general 
recognition. 

With  the  fall  of  Miinster,  Anabaptist  influence  in 
Germany  was  substantially  at  an  end.  The  author- 
ities vigorously  rooted  out  those  that  remained,  and 
public  sentiment  regarded  this  severity  as  wholly 
justified.  In  the  Netherlands  the  collapse  was  far 
less  complete,  and  that  the  Anabaptist  cause  was 
there  rescued  was  due  to  the  pacific  teachings,  de- 
voted character  and  organizing  ability  of  Menno 
Simons — the  restorer  of  Anabaptism.     Such  a  work 


Later  Afiabaptists.  345 

was  needed,  for  some  of  the  leaders  of  the  Nether- 
land  Anabaptists  after  the  fall  of  Miinster  were  no 
more  worthy  than  those  who  had  perished  in  that 
catastrophe.  David  Joris,  to  cite  the  most  noto- 
rious, persuaded  a  considerable  following  that  he 
was  himself  the  Messiah  of  a  better  kingdom  than 
that  of  Christ,  in  which  the  members  were  no 
longer  bound  by  the  old  laws  of  morality.  Active 
from  1536  onward,  he  was  soon  driven  from  Delft, 
and  lived  from  1544  to  his  death  in  1556,  at  Basel, 
under  an  assumed  name  and  ostensibly  as  a  Zwing- 
lian,  while  sending  out  constant  publications  in  sup- 
port of  his  fanatic  claims.  His  followers  were  to  be 
found  in  small  numbers  for  years  after  his  death.  In 
Menno  Simons,  however,  the  Anabaptists  had  a 
leader  of  a  very  different  stamp.  Born  at  Witmar- 
sum,  in  Friesland,  about  1492,  he  became  a  priest  of 
the  Roman  Church  in  his  native  district,  but  was 
profoundly  moved  by  the  leaven  of  the  German  and 
Swiss  Reformations.  Like  many  others  prominent 
in  Anabaptist  circles,  he  passed  from  some  sympa- 
thy with  the  conservative  reformers  to  more  radical 
views.  By  1532,  he  was  a  secret  disciple  of  Hof- 
mann  in  many  doctrines;  and,  by  1534,  he  seems 
to  have  had  relations  with  the  Anabaptist  party. 
Yet  it  was  not  till  1536  that  he  resigned  his  Roman 
priesthood,  and  soon  after  took  the  leadership  of  the 
moderate  element  of  the  Dutch  Anabaptists.  From 
that  time  till  his  death  in  1559,  Menno  Simons  la^ 
bored  indefatigably  in  Holland,  Friesland,  Cologne 
and  Holstein,  as  opportunity  offered,  opposing  all 
that    savored     of   Miinster,  urging   non-resistance, 


346  The  Reformation. 

developing  peaceable,  industrious  congregations, 
chiefly  of  artisans,  insisting  on  strict  discipline  and 
exemplary  morality,  and  endeavoring  by  pen  and 
voice  to  remove  the  stigma  under  which  Anabap- 
tism  suffered.  In  this  work  he  had  marked  success  ; 
and,  at  his  death,  the  "  Mennonites  "  were  firmly 
established  in  the  Netherlands  and  relatively  feebly 
represented  in  Germany.  In  the  last-named  land 
the  Anabaptist  movement  had  ceased  to  be  signifi- 
cant. In  Holland,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Men- 
nonites  obtained  toleration  from  William  the  Silent 
in  1575-77  5  ^"ci  from  thence,  through  contact  with 
English  reformers  in  the  seventeenth  century,  their 
views,  especially  their  conception  of  the  visible 
Church  as  composed  of  self-governing  local  congre- 
gations of  professed  disciples  of  Christ  rather  than 
of  all  the  baptized  inhabitants  of  a  country,  and  their 
theory  that  baptism  is  an  ordinance  for  personal  be- 
lievers and  not  for  infants,  have  won  wide  following 
in  England  and  America,  and  have  profoundly  in- 
fluenced the  religious  and  political  development  of 
the  New  World. 

The  Anabaptists  constituted  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  radical  parties  of  the  Reformation  age  ; 
but  there  were  several  other  attempts  of  some  signifi- 
cance to  effect  a  purification  of  the  Church  along 
lines  unlike  those  pursued  by  Luther,  Melanchthon, 
Zwingli  and  Calvin.  Such  an  attempt  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  subjective,  mystical  spiritualization  of 
religion  and  of  the  Church  was  that  of  Sebastian 
Franck.  Born  in  1499,  at  Donau worth,  Franck 
studied  at  Ingolstadt  and  at  Heidelberg,  and  entered 


Sebastian  Franck.  347 

the  Roman  priesthood.  But,  by  1527,  he  was  labor- 
ing as  a  strict  Lutheran  in  the  region  about  Nurem- 
berg. Greatly  impressed  by  Luther's  moulding 
thoughts  always,  he  nevertheless  speedily  began  to 
query  why  it  was  that  the  Lutheran  Reformation 
often  failed  to  effect  the  moral  improvement  of  its 
professed  adherents.  He  urged  the  enforcement  of 
church  discipline  ;  but  he  soon  came  to  regard  that 
prescription  as  insufficient,  and  to  advocate  more 
drastic  remedies.  To  his  earnest,  mystical  temper- 
ament the  weakness  of  Lutheranism  seemed  to  con- 
sist in  its  externalism  of  organization  and  worship, 
and  its  dependence  of  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  time  was  at  hand,  he  declared,  in  1530,  just  as 
Melanchthon  was  crystallizing  Lutheran  doctrine  in 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  when  preaching,  cere- 
monies, sacraments,  excommunications,  and  the  ex- 
ternal visible  Church  should  be  swept  away,  and  in 
its  place  should  be  recognized  an  invisible  spiritual 
Church  composed  of  all  Christians  and  ruled  without 
external  means  by  the  inward  monitions  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  The  Word  of  God  he  would  find  in  nature 
and  in  history  no  less  than  in  the  Scriptures.  Slav- 
ery to  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  Franck  held  to  be  the 
source  of  all  the  sects  and  divisions  of  Christendom. 
The  Scriptures  can  be  understood  only  spiritually. 
Hence,  Franck  rejected  all  the  religious  parties  of 
his  day,  Roman,  Lutheran,  Zwinglian  and  Anabap- 
tist ;  and,  consistently  with  his  own  principles, 
abandoned  all  ecclesiastical  office,  from  1528  on- 
ward, and  attempted  to  gather  no  organized  band  of 
disciples.     His  life  was  one  of  persecution.     From 


348  The  Reformation. 

152910  1 53 1,  Strassburg  gave  him  a  precarious  home. 
Next  he  gained  a  scanty  living  as  a  soap-boiler  at 
Esslingen,  then  as  a  printer  at  Ulm  from  1533  to 
1539,  and  in  the  same  employment  at  Basel  till 
death  put  an  end  to  his  troubled  career  in  1542  or 
1543.  Had  Franck  not  been  gifted  with  a  German 
prose  style  second  in  popular  effectiveness  only  to 
that  of  Luther  himself,  his  singularities  of  opinion 
would  have  covered  his  name  with  speedy  oblivion  ; 
but  so  vigorous  was  his  pen  that  his  numerous  pam- 
phlets and  volumes  were  reprinted  and  read  in  Ger- 
many, and  even  more  in  Holland,  for  more  than  a 
century  after  his  death.  They  formed  the  basis  of 
no  sect ;  but,  though  condemned  by  Protestant  and 
Roman  theologians,  they  influenced  the  thinking  of 
many  who  were  far  from  accepting  all  his  conclu- 
sions. 

A  man  of  somewhat  similar  tendencies  to  those 
of  Franck,  though  less  radical  and  of  more  perma- 
nent influence,  was  Kaspar  Schwenkfeld,  a  member 
of  a  noble  Silesian  family,  born  at  Ossig  in  1489, 
educated  at  Cologne,  and,  as  a  young  man,  em- 
ployed in  the  court-service  of  Duke  Friedrich  H.  of 
the  Liegnitz  branch  of  the  Silesian  line.  A  disciple 
of  Luther  as  early  as  15 19,  he  was  one  of  the  first  to 
further  the  introduction  of  Lutheranism  into  Si- 
lesia. He  made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  the 
Wittenberg  divines,  and  for  several  years  worked  in 
harmony  with  them.  But  as  Franck  was  led  to 
question  why  the  Evangelical  doctrines  often  bore 
little  fruit  in  the  lives  of  their  adherents,  so  Schwenk- 
feld queried,  and  his  answer  was  much  the  same. 


Kaspar  Schwenkfeld.  349 

The  Evangelicalism  of  Luther  seemed  to  him  too 
external  and  objective,  its  use  of  Scripture  too  literal 
and  unspiritual,  its  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
alone  perilous  unless  the  life  of  God  in  the  believer 
was  put  in  the  foreground.  The  inner,  true,  regen- 
erative Word  of  God  in  the  Christian  is  the  indwell- 
ing Christ  ;  and  though  Schwenkfeld  by  no  means 
denied  the  worth  of  the  written  Word  of  God,  he 
taught  that  it  was  supplemented,  understood  and 
rightly  interpreted  only  by  the  inner  light  which 
comes  from  that  divine  indwelling. 

These  were  decided  departures  from  the  type  of 
theology  and  conceptions  of  the  Church  and  of  the 
Bible  which  Luther  was  championing  by  the  time  of 
the  Peasants'  War;  but  Schwenkfeld,  about  1525, 
added  another  heresy  by  his  peculiar  teaching 
regarding  that  burning  doctrinal  question  of  the 
third  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century — the  nature 
of  Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper.  His  mystic, 
spiritualizing  temperament  would  not  interpret  with 
Luther  Christ's  words  as  meaning:  "This  is  my 
actual  physical  body  ;  "  nor  with  Zwingli  as  :  "  This 
signifies  my  body."  To  him  they  were  understand- 
able only  as:  "My  body  is  this,  namely,  spiritual 
food  .  .  .  my  blood  is  this,  namely,  spiritual 
drink."  And  by  this  Schwenkfeld  signified  not  so 
much  the  theory  of  Christ's  spiritual  presence  which 
Calvin  was  later  to  champion  and  Melanchthon 
to  approach  as  a  Quaker-like  minification  of  all  that 
was  material  in  the  sacraments.  Discussions  with 
Luther  did  not  change  his  position,  and  his  stay  in 
his  native  Silesia  was  rendered  so   uncomfortable 


350  The  Reformation. 

that,  in  1529,  he  removed  to  Strassburg.  There  he 
found  refuge  till  1533  ;  but  from  thence  onward  to 
his  death  at  Ulm,  in  1561,  he  was  without  any  long- 
continuing  home,  meeting  constant  opposition,  and 
in  turn  opposing  the  great  men  of  the  Evangelical 
movement  in  Germany  and  Switzerland.  Southern 
Germany  was  the  chief  scene  of  his  labors,  and  here 
he  wrote,  debated  and  won  disciples  as  opportunity 
offered.  A  theory  of  the  nature  of  Christ's  body, 
somewhat  resembling  the  view  of  Melchior  Hof- 
mann,  and  denying  the  physical  participation  of  the 
Saviour  in  our  common  created  humanity  as  that  par- 
ticipation has  been  ordinarily  explained,  added  to  the 
divergence  between  him  and  the  conservative  Evan- 
gelical leaders.  On  Schwenkf eld  Luther  poured  out 
most  contemptuous  and  vituperative  denunciation, 
and  Melanchthon,  when  both  were  nearly  at  the 
goal  of  life,  urged  the  magistrates  to  suppress  his 
teachings  ;  but  his  character,  piety  and  Christian 
sincerity  were  above  all  reproach,  and  Schwenkfeld 
stands  as  one  of  the  noblest  figures  among  the 
minor  leaders  of  the  Reformation  age. 

Unlike  Franck,  Schwenkfeld  had  no  hostility  to 
organized  congregations,  however  critical  he  might 
be  of  what  he  deemed  the  externalism  of  the  Ro- 
man, Lutheran  or  Zwinglian  church-constitutions. 
Yet  he  did  not  undertake  to  found  a  sect.  At  his 
death  his  adherents  were  to  be  met  with  in  consider- 
able numbers  in  Augsburg  and  Nuremberg,  in  vari- 
ous towns  of  Wiirtemberg,  the  Palatinate,  the 
Tyrol,  and  of  his  native  Silesia.  In  the  last-named 
region  of  Germany  they  gathered  into  congregations 


The  Libertines.  351 

after  Schwenkfeld's  demise,  which  endured  much 
persecution  and  from  which  refugees  found  a  home 
across  the  Atlantic,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  1734,  where, 
though  few  in  numbers,  they  still  honor  Schwenk- 
feld's name  and  maintain  a  vigorous  religious  life. 
Like  all  epochs  in  which  men  are  profoundly 
stirred  to  consideration  of  religion,  the  Reformation 
age  had  its  little  eddies  of  pantheistic  antinomian- 
ism.  Such  a  party  was  that  which  called  itself  the 
"  Spirituels,"  but  which  its  opponents  styled  the 
"  Libertines,"  as,  in  their  judgment,  a  more  appro- 
priate designation.  It  seems  to  have  had  its  begin- 
nings in  the  preaching  of  an  enthusiast  named  Cop- 
pin,  at  Lille,  about  1529,  and  to  have  been  carried 
within  a  few  months  from  its  home  in  the  French- 
speaking  Netherlands  to  France  itself  by  a  certain 
Quintin  from  the  district  of  Hainault,  by  Antoine 
Pocquet,  once  a  priest  of  the  Roman  communion, 
and  by  others  of  whom  little  memorial  beyond  their 
names  has  been  preserved.  To  their  thinking,  all 
is  but  a  manifestation  of  the  one  Spirit — all  is  God. 
Hence  nothing  can  be  really  bad,  and  the  regenerate 
man  is  the  one  who  recognizes  that  the  common 
distinction  between  good  and  bad  acts  is  baseless, 
since  all  alike  are  the  work  of  God,  and  who  there- 
fore attains  the  innocence  which  Adam  had  before 
he  knew  good  and  evil.  Taught  as  a  secret  doc- 
trine to  the  initiate,  these  views  found  considerable 
acceptance  not  only  in  their  native  Netherlands, 
but  in  France,  where  their  supporters  obtained  pro- 
tection for  a  time  from  that  tolerent  friend  of  the 
French  reformers  and  free-thinkers  alike,  Marguerite 


The  Reformation. 


d'Angouleme,  Queen  of  Navarre,  at  her  little  court 
in  Nerac.  But  they  found  a  powerful  opponent  in 
Calvin,  who  encountered  Quintin,  probably  in  Paris, 
and,  afterward,  Pecquet  at  Geneva.  His  attacks 
upon  this  antinomian  sect  in  1 544  and  1 547,  and  a 
letter  sent  by  him  to  Marguerite  in  1545,  seem  to 
have  been  largely  effective  in  bringing  it  to  an  end. 
It  could  never  have  had  a  vigorous  life.  Though 
its  views  found  following  at  Geneva  itself,  as  re- 
lated in  a  previous  chapter,  and  gave  a  name  to 
an  important  party  of  Calvin's  opponents,  the  Gene- 
van "Libertines,"  as  a  whole,  were  more  moved 
by  political  than  by  speculative  impulses,  and  are 
only  partially  to  be  classed  with  the  full  Spirituels. 
Less  radical  in  its  denial  of  sin  and  more  perma- 
nent in  its  influence,  perhaps  because  more  a  re- 
ligion and  less  a  system  of  philosophy  than  the 
theories  of  the  "Spirituels,"  was  the  "Family  of 
Love."  Like  the  Spirituels,  the  "  Familists,"  as 
they  were  often  called,  originated  in  the  Nether- 
lands ;  but  their  beginning  was  in  the  Teutonic 
rather  than  the  French-speaking  portion  of  the  land. 
The  founder,  Henrick  Niclaes,  was  a  Dutchman  only 
by  adoption.  Born  in  Miinster,  in  1501  or  1502, 
Niclaes  was  trained  in  the  cloth-dealer's  trade,  and 
proved  himself  a  successful  man  of  business.  As  a 
boy  of  eight,  he  believed  that  he  saw  visions  sent 
from  God  ;  but  through  his  youth  and  early  man- 
hood the  ecstatic  tendency  seems  not  to  have  been 
repeated.  About  1530  he  removed  to  Amsterdam, 
and  came  under  radical  Anabaptist  influences,  no- 
tably those  emanating  from  David  Joris,  of  whom 


The  Family  of  Love.  353 

mention  has  been  made  earlier  in  this  chapter  as 
the  leader  of  the  extremest  type  of  Dutch  Anabap- 
tism  after  the  fall  of  Miinster.  Here  he  believed 
that  the  visions  of  his  childhood  were  renewed,  and, 
in  1539  ^"^  1540?  ^^  claimed  that  he  had  received  a 
divine  call  to  "reveal  love"  as  the  one  cardinal 
principle  of  religion,  and  to  embody  this  principle  in 
a  new  religious  organization — the  "Family  of  Love." 
The  world  had  seen  two  dispensations,  Niclaes  de- 
clared— those  of  Law  and  of  Faith.  He  himself 
was  the  prophet  of  the  third — that  of  Love.  Of  the 
"  Family,"  Niclaesheld  himself  to  be  the  "  bishop," 
while  under  him  he  attempted  to  establish  an  elab- 
orate hierarchy  of  "elders,"  "archbishops,"  and 
various  orders  of  "  priests."  A  new  year,  of  thir- 
teen months,  with  new  festivals,  he  designed  to 
take  the  place  of  the  historic  Christian  calendar. 
He  who  was  of  the  "  Family  "  was  no  longer  under 
any  law,  he  could  no  more  sin,  he  was  in  some  de- 
gree made  partaker  of  the  divine  nature  by  love. 
These  views  Niclaes  disseminated  by  writing  and 
preaching,  making  his  home,  from  1540  to  1560,  in 
Emden,  where  he  prospered  in  trade  From  Emden 
he  made  missionary  excursions  through  the  Nether-, 
lands,  to  France  and  to  England.  The  last-named 
country  he  visited  in  1552  or  1553,  and  gained  quite 
a  number  of  disciples,  who  petitioned  Parliament  for 
toleration  in  1574,  and  sought  the  same  boon  from 
James  L  in  1604,  only  to  feel  the  hand  of  the  gov- 
ernment heavy  upon  them.  Niclaes's  later  life  was 
spent  at  Cologne, where  he  died  about  1580,  and  his 
followers  are  traceable  on  the  Continent  till  about 


354  ^-^^  Reformation. 

1614,  and  in  England  till  1649.  Though  often  ac- 
cused of  gross  immoralities,  the  charges  seem  not 
thoroughly  sustained,  and  the  Familists  as  a  whole 
appear  to  have  been  fairly  harmless  fanatics  ;  but 
the  names  "  Familist,"  "Libertine,"  and  "  Anti- 
nomian  "  were  regarded  with  horror  by  the  English 
Puritans  and  Scottish  Presbyterians  of  the  seven- 
teenth century. 

In  a  certain  sense  all  modern  church  history,  with 
its  kaleidoscopic  exhibitions  of  the  divisions  of 
Christendom,  is  a  consequence  of  the  freedom  which 
the  Reformation  won  ;  but  the  greater  part  of  these 
modern  subdivisions  of  Protestantism,  so  important 
for  present  ecclesiastical  life,  belong  to  a  period  later 
than  that  treated  in  this  volume.  The  radical  forces 
just  described  and  the  anti-Trinitarian  speculations 
outlined  in  an  earlier  chapter  were  the  most  im- 
portant variant  presentations  of  doctrine,  polity  and 
religious  life  that  accompanied  the  great  revolt  from 
Rome.  In  them  were  presented  a  great  variety 
of  opinions,  from  views  which  extensive  modern 
religious  bodies  regard  as  true  interpretations  of 
the  Gospel  to  such  thoroughly  un-Christian  ec- 
centricities as  those  of  Thomas  Miinzer,  John  of 
Leyden,  David  Joris,  and  Henrick  Niclaes.  With 
these  fanatic  extremists,  one  can  have  little  sym- 
pathy ;  but  as  one  studies  the  story  of  such  mod- 
erate and  devoted  Anabaptists  as  Hubmaier  and 
Menno  Simons,  or  of  such  spiritually-minded  mys- 
tics as  Franck  and  Schwenkfeld,  one  is  moved  to  a 
high  regard.  When  one  recalls  their  patient  en- 
durance of  persecution,  their  devotion  to  truth  as 


Value  of  the  Radicals.  355 

they  understood  it,  and  their  courageous  faith,  one 
is  often  tempted  to  query  whether  they  did  not  ex- 
hibit more  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  than  did  the  more 
conservative  reformers  who  persecuted  them.  In 
spite  of  all  their  crudities  and  mistakes,  they  were 
prophets  of  a  freedom  to  come.  But  one  recalls, 
also,  that  could  even  the  most  moderate  of  these 
radicals  have  mastered  the  situation  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  Evangelical  movement  would  have 
ended  in  division,  weakness  and  failure.  The  na- 
tions long  trained  under  the  discipline  which  Rome 
had  enforced  could  not  have  passed  at  once  in  safety 
to  such  a  freedom  as  now  exists  in  America.  The 
results  would  have  been  anarchy  and  death.  Well 
was  it  for  Christianity,  on  the  whole,  that  those  who 
revolted  from  Rome  underwent  the  tutelage  and 
restraint  which  was  imposed  by  Luther,  Zwingli, 
and  Calvin,  and  by  the  princes  and  magistrates  of 
the  Protestant  party.  They  were  ready  for  greater 
freedom  than  the  middle  ages  knew  how  to  use. 
They  were  not  yet  trained  for  such  freedom  as 
the  more  moderate  radicals  desired.  The  time  of 
readiness  had  not  yet  come.  Such  license  as  the 
destructive  and  fanatic  radicals  wished  is,  of  course, 
impossible  of  realization  in  any  age  of  the  world. 
It  would  have  been  the  destruction  of  Chris- 
tianity. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  COUNTER-REFORMATION. 

|T  was  pointed  out,  in  speaking  of  the 
Spanish  Awakening,  that  the  Reforma- 
tion age  beheld  a  struggle  between  two 
great  types  of  Reform  rather  than  a 
contest  between  active  revolution  and 
passive  inactivity.  At  the  same  time,  it  was  re- 
marked that,  had  it  not  been  for  the  stimulus  of  the 
Protestant  revolt,  a  general  Reformation  of  the 
Roman  Church  from  within  might  never  have  been 
effected.  The  lines  which  that  Roman  Reformation 
were  to  take  were,  indeed,  clearly  marked  out,  a 
generation  before  Luther  began  his  work,  in  the 
Spanish  Awakening — itself  but  the  most  thorough- 
going and  extensive  of  several  conservative  attempts 
to  purify  the  Church.  It  aimed  to  fill  clerical  offices 
with  men  of  piety  and  churchly  zeal.  It  sought  to 
limit  the  worst  of  papal  abuses,  often  by  increasing 
the  power  of  the  crown  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  It 
endeavored  to  use  the  results  of  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing in  the  service  of  the  Church,  and  to  foster  the 
education  of  the  clergy.  It  strove  to  make  the 
theology  of  the  best  period  of  the  middle  ages  once 
more  a   living   science.     It   stimulated   missionary 

356 


Aims  of  the  Movement.  357 

zeal.  But  it  was  fiercely  intolerant  of  modifications 
in  doctrine  or  of  separations  from  the  Roman  com- 
munion, and  would  repress  them  by  every  effective 
means.  The  Inquisition — developed  in  its  intense 
Spanish  form  before  Protestantism  was  thought  of — 
was  its  characteristic  instrument.  Yet,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  ferment  of  the  Protestant  revolt  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  a  restoration  of  the 
strength  of  the  Roman  communion  from  within 
would  have  become  a  counter-Reformation  coex- 
tensive with  Latin  Christendom. 

Many  of  the  steps  of  that  conservative  Roman 
movement  have  already  been  noted  in  this  narrative. 
Its  strenuous  beginnings  in  Spain  under  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  ably  assisted  by  Ximenes,  have  been 
described.  The  labors  of  Campegi,  begun  in  1524, 
to  restore  Catholicism  in  southern  Germany,  and  to 
relieve  the  pressure  there  of  the  extremer  papal  ad- 
ministrative abuses,  have  been  glanced  at.  Some 
account  has  been  given  of  the  revival  of  religion 
among  the  higher  ecclesiastics  of  Italy,  manifested 
in  the  Oratory  of  Divine  Love,  or  even  more  in  such 
an  organization  for  the  cultivation  of  preaching  and 
the  stimulation  of  a  warmer  spiritual  churchly  life 
as  the  Theatine  Order  founded  in  1524.  This  Ital- 
ian revival,  it  was  seen,  enlisted  the  sympathy  of 
men  as  unlike  in  temperament  as  Contarini  and 
Caraffa,  and  owed  not  a  little  to  the  stimulating 
touch  of  the  Spanish  Awakening,  which  Caraffa  at 
least  looked  upon  as  largely  the  ideal  of  what  a 
churchly  Reformation  should  be.  It  is  evident, 
therefore,  that  though  the  papacy,  in  its  worldliness 


358  The  Reformation.' 

and  devotion  to  politics,  still  failed  to  grasp  the 
situation,  and  though  effective  theological  opposi- 
tion to  Lutheranism  had  not  made  itself  felt,  by  the 
time  that  the  Augsburg  Confession  was  formulated, 
in  1530,  the  counter-Reformation  was  vigorously- 
reaching  out  from  the  Spanish  peninsula  and  had 
obtained  a  footing  in  Italy  and  Germany,  as  well  as 
the  cordial  sympathies  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V. 

Most  important  was  it  for  the  future  of  the  Roman 
Church  that  the  spirit  of  the  counter-Reformation 
should  gain  control  of  the  papacy.  That  control 
was  not  easily  won,  for  no  portion  of  the  Roman 
Church  had  become  more  thoroughly  secularized 
than  the  papacy  and  its  associated  curia  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century.  Alexander  VI., 
Julius  II.,  and  Leo  X.  were  men  without  interest  in 
religion,  concerned  with  politics  and  touched  by  the 
humanistic  spirit  of  the  age,  but  utterly  unable  to 
lead  the  Church  to  a  stronger  religious  life  or  to 
support  those  who  would  so  lead  it.  With  Adrian 
VI.  the  Spanish  type  of  Reformation  reached  the 
papal  throne  for  a  brief  period  ;  but  Rome  was  not 
yet  ready  for  it,  and  Adrian  died,  in  1523,  a  heart- 
broken man,  unable  to  effect  the  reforms  which  he 
saw  to  be  necessary,  and  baffled  by  none  more  com- 
pletely than  by  the  officials  of  his  own  court.  With 
Clement  VII.  (1523-34),  Rome  again  possessed  a 
pope  who  failed  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the  re- 
ligious situation  of  Europe.  Moderate  and  person- 
ally of  excellent  repute,  with  that  keen  interest  in 
learning,  art  and  politics  which  marked  the  Medi- 
cian  house  from  which  he  sprang,he  greatly  aided  the 


The  Papacy.  359 

German  Reformation  by  his  political  opposition  to 
Charles  V.  and  his  interference  in  favor  of  France 
when  the  defeat  of  its  armies  would  have  left  the 
emperor  free  to  repress  his  Protestant  subjects.  But 
by  reason  of  Clement  VII. 's  policy,  and  in  spite  of 
his  wishes,  the  way  was  markedly  prepared  for  the 
dominance  of  a  new  spirit  at  Rome.  His  policy  of 
favor  to  the  French  led  to  the  German-Spanish  cap- 
ture of  the  papal  city  in  1527  and  its  savage  sack. 
The  catastrophe  broke  the  dominance  of  the  easy- 
going, pleasure-loving,  artistic  Italian  humanism  over 
Roman  affairs.  Rome  emerged  desolate.  An  in- 
fluence which  had  stood  for  half  a  century  opposed 
to  any  strenuous  ecclesiastical  zeal  was  greatly 
weakened,  at  the  very  time  that  the  forces  of  spirit- 
ual reform  were  beginning  to  assert  themselves  on 
the  Italian  peninsula. 

Clement's  successor,  Paul  III.  (1534-49),  a  Far- 
nese  by  birth,  was  a  man  of  great  diplomatic  abilities, 
of  splendor-loving  tastes,  and  devoted  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  interests  of  his  family.  Neither 
in  personal  life  nor  in  sympathy  was  he  one  to  whom 
strenuous  religious  motives  made  an  appeal.  But 
in  Paul  III.  the  Roman  see  had  an  occupant  of  in- 
sight into  the  needs  of  the  times,  and  with  his  acces- 
sion a  transformation  of  the  College  of  Cardinals 
began.  Though  he  appointed  his  youthful  grand- 
children to  this  high  office,  he  had  been  but  a  short 
time  pope  when  he  bestowed  the  honor  upon  emi- 
nent members  of  the  Italian  reform  party,  represent- 
ative of  its  various  shades  of  opinion — namely,  Con- 
tarini,  Caraffa,  Pole,  Fregoso  and  Sadoleto,     With 


360  The  Reformation. 

the  admission  of  these  men  to  the  papal  councils, 
a  positive  element  of  strength  was  added  to  the 
papacy,  and  thenceforward  the  appointment  of  car- 
dinals without  moral  earnestness  or  theological 
learning  became  an  exception  of  rapidly  increasing 
rarity,  Paul  saw,  too,  that  a  general  council  was  a 
necessity,  however  unpalatable  to  the  papacy,  and 
he  issued  a  bull,  in  1536,  summoning  its  assembly  at 
Mantua.  Some  of  the  difficulties,  political  and  relig- 
ious, which  this  much-sought  council  that  ultimately 
gathered  effectively  at  Trent,  in  1545,  encountered, 
none  the  least  of  them  coming  from  the  policy  of 
the  pope  himself,  have  already  been  noted  in  tracing 
the  story  of  the  German  Reformation  ;  its  results 
will  be  considered  more  fully  in  this  chapter.  But 
that  a  pope  was  induced  to  call  a  general  council  at 
all  showed  that  the  papacy  was  waking  to  the  gravity 
of  the  situation  and  the  necessity  of  some  reforma- 
tory measures.  A  similar  evidence  that  Paul  III. 
was  reading  the  signs  of  the  times  appeared  in  his 
appointment  of  Caraffa,  Contarini,  Pole,  Aleander 
and  other  cardinals,  in  1536,  as  a  commission  on  the 
betterment  of  the  Church — a  commission  which  pre- 
sented a  very  plain-spoken  report  the  following  year. 
But  though  the  reformatory  forces  which  Paul  III. 
thus  had  the  wisdom  to  enlist  were  in  no  sense 
Protestant,  there  was  at  first  a  division  among  them 
as  to  how  Protestants  should  be  treated.  Caraffa 
and  his  friends,  including  the  new  order  of  the 
Theatines,  held  that  there  should  be  no  toleration 
of  heresy.  Their  view  was  that  of  Spain.  Contarini 
,and  his  associates,  on   the  other  hand,  hoped  that 


A  New  Papal  Policy.  361 

by  a  policy  of  conciliation  in  doctrines  and  practices 
not  involving  the  papal  supremacy  and  the  more 
vital  features  of  the  mediaeval  theories  of  the  sacra- 
ments and  the  Church,  the  Protestants  might  be 
won  back.  The  emperor,  Charles  V.,  shared  this 
opinion.  But  the  failure  of  the  union  efforts  con- 
ducted by  Charles,  in  1 540  and  1 541 , already  narrated, 
in  which  Contarini  bore  so  large  a  share,  and  Con- 
tarini's  death  in  1542,  threw  the  leadership  of  relig- 
ious Italy  completely  into  Caraffa's  hands  ;  and 
the  victory  of  his  Spanish  theories  was  evidenced 
by  the  reorganization,  in  July,  1542,  by  Paul  III., 
of  the  Inquisition  under  Caraffa's  superintendence 
and  on  the  Spanish  model  at  Rome.  Before  this 
engine  of  uniformity,  Italian  dissent  promptly  dis- 
appeared. 

When  the  principles  of  the  counter-Reformation 
so  far  dominated  the  action  of  a  pope  who  had  little 
personal  inclination  to  them,  it  needed  but  the 
coming  to  the  papal  throne  of  one  to  whom  those 
principles  were  congenial  to  make  their  mastery  of 
the  papacy  complete.  Paul  III.'s  immediate  suc- 
cessor, Julius  III.  (1550-55),  was  not  a  man  of  force 
of  character  ;  but  at  his  death,  the  counter-Refor- 
mation party  had  grown  strong  enough  in  the  College 
of  Cardinals  to  control  the  election.  In  Marcellus  II. 
Rome  gained  a  pope  of  promise  and  of  earnest  re- 
formatory spirit,  as  the  counter-Reformation  under- 
stood reform.  His  papacy  lasted  only  twenty-two 
days  ;  but  he  was  succeeded  by  no  less  redoubtable 
a  champion  of  a  revived,  purified  and  intensified 
ecclesiasticism   than   Caraffa  himself  as   Paul   IV. 


362  The   Reformation. 

(1555-59)-  Strongly  anti-Spanish  in  politics  and 
defeated  in  war  with  Spain,  his  churchly  ideal  was, 
nevertheless,  fully  that  of  the  Spanish  Awakening. 
He  purified  the  churches,  he  regulated  his  court,  he 
compelled  the  cardinals  to  preach,  and  set  them  an 
example  himself.  He  did  away  with  many  of  the 
financial  abuses  of  the  papal  administration.  He 
sought  the  adornment  of  public  worship.  He  inten- 
sified the  methods  and  increased  the  powers  of  the 
Inquisition.  The  change  was  complete.  Rome  had 
passed  from  the  humanistic  popes,  learned,  art- 
loving,  worldly,  indifferent  to  religious  concerns,  to 
the  rule  of  ecclesiastics  who  were  strenuous  sup- 
porters of  the  counter-Reformation  and  zealous 
opponents  of  Protestantism.  The  popes  who  suc- 
ceeded Paul  IV.  to  the  end  of  the  Reformation  age, 
whatever  their  unlikenesses  in  other  respects,  had 
this  in  common,  that  they  made  the  interests  of 
the  Church — as  they  understood  those  interests — 
their  first  concern. 

This  change  in  the  character  and  zeal  of  the 
papacy — a  change  involving  no  alteration  in  its 
doctrines  or  claims — was  the  result  rather  than  the 
cause  of  the  awakening  life  of  the  Roman  Church. 
That  life  had  many  manifestations,  but  several  are 
more  easily  pointed  out  than  others  and  are  of  ex- 
ceptional significance. 

One  of  the  special  manifestations  of  reviving  life 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  renewal  of  confidence  in  the- 
ology as  a  science  through  a  return  to  that  great  me- 
diaeval Augustinian,  the  chiefest  of  the  schoolmen, 
Thoma?  Aquinas.     For  two  hundred   years  before 


Theology   Revived.  363 

the  Reformation,  nominalism  had  been  discrediting 
the  intellectual  value  of  theology.  Nominalism  had 
asserted  the  unprovableness  of  its  main  doctrines. 
It  had  produced  a  feeling  of  distrust  of  theology, 
since  it  was  but  a  poor  substitute  for  the  intellec- 
tual confidence  of  an  Augustine  or  an  Aquinas  to 
assert  that  dogma,  though  philosophically  im- 
probable, must  be  accepted  because  taught  by 
churchly  authority.  That  view  reduced  Christian 
truth,  in  the  thought  of  the  multitude,  simply  to 
the  level  of  the  ofificial,  legally  authorized,  system 
of  a  great  corporation.  But  the  early  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century  were  witnessing  the  beginnings 
of  a  change.  In  a  true  sense  the  Reformation 
period  was  an  Augustinian  age.  Humanism  had 
aided  it  to  become  so.  The  humanistic  spirit  in- 
clined its  disciples,  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic, 
to  go  back  to  the  sources — that  is,  at  least  to  the 
fathers  of  mediaeval  Christianity,  if  not  fully  to  the 
New  Testament.  In  the  Protestant  movement  this 
tendency  had  its  most  striking  illustration.  Luther, 
Zwingli  and  Calvin  were  determined  Augustinians. 
But  the  same  disposition  to  go  back  from  the  un- 
certainties and  externalities  of  the  later  nominalistic 
theology  to  the  intellectual  confidence  and  spiritual 
depth  of  an  earlier  period  was  manifested,  though 
in  a  very  inferior  degree,  in  the  Roman  Church 
itself.  The  return  was  not  so  far.  It  was  to  Aqui- 
nas rather  than  to  Augustine  and  Paul.  But,  in  so 
far  as  it  gained  control  of  thought,  it  was  a  restora- 
tion of  confidence  in  theology  as  a  self-respecting 
science    and    an    emphasis    upon    the   better    and 


364  The  Reformation. 

more  spiritual  aspects  of  mediaeval  teaching.  Here, 
though  Italy  furnished  a  conspicuous  representative, 
Spain  chiefly  led  the  way,  because  in  Spain  human- 
ism combined  with  the  older  scholasticism  in  more 
harmonious  relations  than  elsewhere  in  Europe. 
The  great  expounders  of  Aquinas,  the  Italian  Car- 
dinal Cajetan — Luther's  opponent — and  the  Span- 
iards, Francisco  de  Vittoria,  of  Salamanca,  with  his 
pupils,  Melchior  Cano,  of  the  same  university,  and 
Domingo  de  Soto,  of  Alcala,  gave  new  life  to  the 
Thomistic  theology.  De  Soto  and  Cano  were  to 
influence  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  thus  the  official 
creed  of  Roman  Catholicism.  Through  these  men 
and  their  pupils  the  theology  of  the  Roman  Church 
was  revived,  though  their  work  was  largely  destined 
to  be  of  a  temporary  character  and  to  be  displaced, 
before  the  seventeenth  century  had  far  advanced, 
by  a  new  nominalism  in  the  probabilism  and  anti- 
Augustinianism  of  the  Jesuits.  Yet,  though  tem- 
porary, this  Thomistic  revival,  with  its  renewal  of 
confidence  in  mediaeval  theology,  was  a  mighty  in- 
tellectual aid  to  the  counter-Reformation. 

These  new  expounders  of  Aquinas  were  Domini- 
cans, yet  it  would  be  too  much  to  afBrm  that  the 
Dominican  order  as  a  whole  shared  this  revived 
Thomistic  spirit.  That  order  had  long  passed  its 
prime.  Its  chief  weight  was  that  of  inertia,  and  of 
opposition  to  novelty,  as  exemplified  in  its  hostility 
to  Reuchlin.  But,  in  reckoning  the  forces  which 
stayed  Protestantism,  the  Dominican  order  as  a 
whole  must  be  taken  into  account.  It  furnished  few 
recruits  for  Protestantism  ;  it  supplied  many  of  the 


Theology  Revived.  365 

most  determined  of  Protestantism's  early  opponents. 
In  control  of  instruction  in  most  of  the  universities 
of  Europe,  eager  to  suppress  heresy  and  hearty  in 
its  support  of  the  Inquisition,  it  stood,  especially 
outside  of  Germany,  as  a  great  block  in  the  path  of 
Protestant  reform. 

But  neither  renewed  confidence  in  theology  nor 
the  conservative  forces  of  such  an  order  as  that  of 
St.  Dominic  would  have  availed  to  check  the  tide 
of  Protestant  advance.  Far  more  important  was 
the  revival  of  piety  in  the  Roman  Church.  That 
revival  took  the  forms  characteristic  of  the  Roman 
conception  of  Christianity.  It  found  expression 
largely  in  monastic  organizations,  it  viewed  the 
submission  of  the  individual  will  to  the  judgment  of 
the  Church  as  the  highest  Christian  duty,  its  concep- 
tion of  the  way  of  salvation  was  the  external,  cor- 
porate, sacramental  view  of  the  middle  ages,  it 
regarded  "  heretics  "  with  abhorrence;  but  its  in- 
creased spirituality,  zeal  and  power  cannot  be  denied. 

The  ascetic  ideal  has  always  appealed  to  the  Latin 
races,  and  one  characteristic  trait  of  the  Roman  re- 
vival of  religion  is  to  be  seen  in  new  congregations 
and  in  the  modification  of  existing  orders.  The 
establishment  of  the  Theatines,  in  1524,  to  secure 
the  betterment  of  the  clergy  of  Italy  and  to  oppose 
religious  innovators,  has  already  been  described. 
But  they  were  far  from  alone.  The  Theatines  were 
largely  from  the  upper  classes  and  constituted  the 
aristocracy  of  the  Italian  counter-Reformation. 
Somewhat  similar  in  aim,  but  more  democratic  in 
character,  were  the  Barnabites,  founded  at  Milan  by 


o 


66  The   Reformation. 


Antonio  Maria  Zaccaria  (1502-39),  in  1530,  to  de- 
velop the  religious  life  of  the  people  by  preaching 
and  more  frequent  administration  of  the  sacraments. 
Far  less  significant  intellectually,  but  not  without 
influence  on  the  lower  classes  by  reason  of  devotion 
to  preaching,  were  the  Capuchins,  a  subdivision  of 
the  old  Franciscan  order  effected  by  Matteo  Bassi 
in  1528.  Originating  in  a  question  regarding  mo- 
nastic garb,  and  prevailingly  marked  by  ignorance, 
the  Capuchin  movement,  which  rose  to  the  dignity 
of  a  separate  monastic  order  in  1619,  has  been  far 
removed  from  all  Protestant  conceptions  of  the 
Christian  life,  yet  it  represents  a  real  element  in  the 
counter-Reformation.  A  figure  of  much  greater  at- 
tractiveness than  that  of  Bassi  is  Filippo  de  Neri 
(1515-95),  well  known  by  reason  of  his  exemplifica- 
tion of  the  Roman  ideal  of  saintliness,  his  charity, 
his  cheerful  spirit,  and  his  labors  in  Rome  itself,  re- 
sulting in  the  organization  of  the  Society  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  in  1548,  to  aid  pilgrims  to  Rome,  and  of 
the  far  more  important  Congregation  of  the  Oratory, 
which  gained  papal  sanction  in  1574 — an  association 
of  varied  activity  and  including  many  men  of  learn- 
ing, to  which  the  initiation  of  the  musical  oratorio 
was  due.  An  effective  work  among  women  was 
beg-un  when  the  Ursulines  were  founded  at  Brescia 
by  Angela  Merici  (1470- 1540)  in  1535. 

Outside  of  Italy,  also,  Cathohc  piety  found  char- 
acteristic expression  in  organization  ;  and  here  it 
often  took  on  a  mystical  form,  akin  to  that  of  the 
middle  ages.  In  Spain,  and  to  a  less  extent  and  at 
a  later  period  in  France,  this  mystic  tendency  de- 


Awakened  Spirihial  Life.  367 

veloped,  aiming  to  realize  the  immediate  union  of 
the  human  soul  with  God,  by  self-abnegation,  utter 
submission  of  thought  and  will,  inward  prayers,  con- 
templation and  ecstasy.  Among  its  leading  spirits 
may  be  mentioned  Pedro  of  Alcantara  (1499-1562), 
the  founder  of  one  of  the  strictest  of  Spanish  congre- 
gations ;  Teresa  de  Jesus,  of  Avila  (1515-82),  the 
reformer  of  the  Carmelites  and  a  mystical  writer 
whose  "Interior  Castle  "  enjoyed  much  popularity  ; 
Juan  de  la  Cruz  (John  of  the  Cross,  ?-i592),  Teresa's 
friend  and  fellow-reformer  ;  and  Juan  Ciudad,  known 
as  John  of  God  (1495-1550),  a  Portuguese  disciple 
of  Juan  de  la  Cruz  and  founder  of  the  beneficent 
Order  of  the  Brothers  of  Charity.  A  similar  mysti- 
cal tendency  in  France  was  represented  by  Francois 
de  Sales  (i 567-1622),  the  restorer  of  Romanism  in 
Chablais  and  the  Pays  de  Gex,  whose  converts  from 
Protestantism  are  alleged  to  have  numbered  seventy- 
two  thousand  ;  and  by  his  disciple,  Jeanne  Frangoise 
Fremiot  de  Chantal  (i 572-1641),  the  founder  of  the 
Nuns  of  the  Visitation. 

By  these  leaders,  only  a  part  of  whom  have  been 
named,  the  spiritual  zeal  of  the  Roman  Church  was 
stimulated,  their  books  were  read,  their  influence 
touched  wide  circles,  and  their  devotion,  self- 
abnegation,  enthusiasm,  churchly  zeal,  intolerance 
of  "heresy,"  and  emphasis  on  the  characteristic 
Roman  doctrines  and  usages  gave  to  Catholic  piety 
much  of  the  form  in  which  it  is  familiar  to  the 
modern  world.  In  turn,  the  Roman  Church  has  ex- 
pressed its  appreciation  of  them  by  enrolling  very 
many  of  therri  in  the  catalogue  of  its  saints. 


568  The  Reformation. 

But,  great  as  was  the  work  of  those  just  described, 
it  was  far  surpassed  by  that  of  the  most  character- 
istic leader  of  the  counter-Reformation — a  leader 
whom  papal  authority  has  declared  to  have  been 
raised  up  by  God  to  combat  Luther — Ignatius 
Loyola,  the  founder  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  In 
him  the  Roman  opposition  to  Protestantism  pos- 
sessed not  only  its  most  effective  but  its  most  typi- 
cal champion.  Strenuous  in  his  hostility  to  the 
abuses  of  his  time,  as  earnest  Catholics  counted 
abuses,  dominated  by  a  missionary  zeal  that  gives 
him  high  rank  among  those  who  have  sought  to 
widen  the  bounds  of  Christendom,  his  work,  never- 
theless, emphasized  and  intensified  those  aspects 
of  the  Roman  conception  of  religion  with  which 
Protestantism  has  least  sympathy,  and  the  tendency 
which  he  fostered  is  that  which  most  widened  the 
cleft  between  the  parties  into  which  the  ancieni. 
Church  was  rent.  A  true  son  of  Spain,  in  spirit  as 
well  as  in  race,  though  differing  in  some  things  from 
the  reformers  of  the  early  Spanish  Awakening,  as  in 
his  dependence  on  the  papacy,  and  long  looked  upon 
with  suspicion  in  the  land  of  his  birth,  he  was  the 
consummate  product  of  that  movement  which  began 
with  Ferdinand,  Isabella  and  Ximenes.  But  his  sig- 
nificance was  as  wide  as  Christendom,  and  the  Society 
which  he  founded  has  been  the  most  potent  organ- 
ization in  the  Roman  communion  from  his  day  to 
the  present,  because  it  most  fully  embodied  the 
ideals  which  the  logic  of  Roman  development  in- 
volved. It  was  remarked,  in  speaking  of  Luther, 
that  though  to  the  German  Protestant  a  national 


Ignatius  Loyola.  369 

hero,  he  was  so  of  his  race  as  to  be  largely  an 
enigma  or  an  object  of  aversion  to  the  Spaniard  or 
Italian.  The  same  thing  is  true  in  reverse  order  of 
Loyola.  So  completely  was  he  the  son  of  Spain  and 
of  the  Roman  Church  that  a  German  or  Anglo-Saxon 
Protestant  enters  with  difficulty  into  his  range  of 
thought,  appreciates  him  in  his  environment  only  by 
effort,  and  scarcely  comprehends  the  feelings  with 
which  a  Spaniard  or  an  Italian  regards  his  character. 
Yet  his  greatness  as  a  mover  of  men  and  a  founder 
of  institutions  is  evident.  Though  his  work  cannot 
place  him  on  an  equality  with  Luther — the  genius 
of  the  German  was  original  and  creative  of  the  new, 
that  of  the  Spaniard  was  conservative  and  organiz- 
ing of  the  old — his  is  one  of  the  mighty  figures  of 
the  Reformation  age. 

Inigo  Lopez  de  Recalde,  a  younger  son  of  the 
northern  Spanish  noble  family  of  Loyola,  was  born  in 
the  castle  from  which  the  family  took  its  name,  in  the 
Biscayan  province  of  Guipuzcoa,  probably  in  1491. 
Brought  up  as  a  page  at  the  court  of  King  Ferdi- 
nand like  other  young  nobles,  he  soon  showed  a 
capacity  to  lead  men  as  a  soldier.  In  one  of  the 
earliest  battles  of  the  long  contest  between  Charles 
V.  and  Francis  I.  for  the  mastery  of  Europe,  it  fell 
to  his  lot  to  be  the  youngest,  but  the  most  deter- 
mined, of  the  officers  to  whom  the  defence  of  Pam- 
peluna  against  an  overwhelming  French  force  was 
entrusted,  A  severe  wound  in  the  leg,  that  left  him 
permanently  a  cripple,  brought  his  bright  prospects 
of  soldierly  distinction  to  a  sudden  end.  Unwill- 
ing to  abandon  a  life  that  seemed  so  attractive  to 


3  70  The   Refonuation. 

his  masterful  nature,  he  twice  had  the  wounded  leg 
broken  in  the  hope  that  its  bones  might  reknit  more 
successfully,  only  to  endure  disappointment,  pain 
and  prolonged  invalidism.  Strongly  imaginative  and 
adventure-loving,  endued  with  the  romantic  spirit  of 
knighthood,  which  still  survived  in  Spain,  his  favor- 
ite literature  thus  far  had  been  stories  of  knightly 
adventure.  In  his  illness  he  now  read  with  eager- 
ness a  harmony  of  the  Gospels  and  a  collection  of 
the  lives  of  the  saints.  The  thought  came  to  him, 
why  might  he  not  become  a  saint  to  whom  men 
pray,  like  Dominic  or  Francis  ?  All  his  adventurous 
spirit  was  called  forth  to  new  paths.  As  soon  as  able 
to  leave  his  bed,  in  true  knightly  fashion,  he  conse- 
crated himself  to  the  service  of  the  Virgin,  and  laid 
the  weapons  of  his  former  warfare  on  her  altar  at 
Monserrat. 

Then  followed  a  period  of  severe  ascetic  self-denial 
in  the  Dominican  monastery  at  Manresa — a  time  of 
spiritual  struggle  for  Ignatius,  who  now  first  turned 
his  thoughts  inward  and  questioned  his  purposes, 
his  character,  his  Christian  faith.  He  fasted,  he 
scourged  himself,  he  prayed,  but  his  burdening 
sense  of  sinfulness  remained,  till,  at  last,  suddenly, 
and  as  he  believed  by  divine  grace,  he  resolved  to 
cast  his  past  behind  him  and  bring  it  no  more  to  rec- 
ollection even  in  prayer  before  God.  He  was  con- 
vinced that  disquieting  thoughts,  such  as  he  had 
endured,  were  the  work  of  evil  spirits,  whom  he  must 
combat ;  and  so,  master  of  his  own  feelings,  he  took 
the  next  great  step  in  his  spiritual  development — a 
step  which  marks  his  superiority  in  practical  regula- 


Ignatius  Loyola.  37 


tion  of  life  to  the  mystics,  to  whom  he  was  always 
so  near  akin  by  his  spirit  and  his  imagination — he 
received    or   rejected   the   visions  which   his  fancy 
brought  him,  as  God-sent  truth  or  devilish  tempta- 
tion, according  as  they  gave  peace  or  trouble  to  his 
soul.      He  mastered  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings. 
To  him  it  seemed  that  God  revealed  the  mystery  of 
Christ's  person,  the  secret  of  the  Trinity,  the  plan 
of  the  world,  in  visions  of  the  Spirit.      On  these  he 
strengthened  his  faith.     But  he  rejected  visions  of 
equal  clearness  as  temptations  of  evil  if  they  failed 
when  tried  by  his  test.  The  most   remarkable  fruit 
of  this  spiritual  self-mastery,  which  Ignatius  early 
acquired,  is  his  Exercitia  Spiritiialia — an  attempt  to 
reduce  the  spiritual  discipline  of  the  soul  to  a  sys- 
tem, as  the  military  training  of  the  soldier  is  effected 
by  the  manual-of-arms.     The  soldier  spirit  mani- 
fested itself    here  as   throughout   Ignatius's  work. 
For  four  weeks,  and  under  the  guidance  of  a  spir- 
itual master-at-arms,  to  whom  every  emotion  of  the 
soul  is  to  be  made  known,  Ignatius  would  have  his 
disciple  exercise  the  spirit  by  prayer  and  self-exam- 
ination and   by  continuous  and  intent   meditation 
on  definite  aspects  of  sin,  of  the  divine  nature,  of 
Christ's  life  and  passion,  of  this  world  as  a  battle- 
ground between  the  armies  of  Christ  and  of  Satan, 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments,  not  merely  in 
order  that  the  facts  of  Christianity  should  become 
vital   to  the  imagination,  but   that   active  virtues, 
such  as  obedience,  humility  and  love,  should  become 
the  natural  garments  of  the  soul.     To  this  ingenious 
effort  to  create  a  definite  system  of  spiritual  training 


3/2  The  Reformation. 

the  Jesuit  order  has  owed  much,  and  its  practice  is 
still  obligatory  on  every  member.  Something  Ig- 
natius drew,  indeed,  from  older  treatises  of  mystics 
like  Thomas  a  Kempis,  or  Garcia  Cisnero  of  Man- 
resa,  but  his  whole  handling  was  profoundly  orig- 
inal. It  met  the  desire  characteristic  of  humanism 
for  individual  self-development,  yet  it  met  it  in  a 
way  to  subjugate  the  disciple  to  the  Church.  From 
the  first  the  Excrcitia  appealed  more  to  the  educated 
than  to  the  ignorant ;  to  the  man  who  has  made 
some  progress  in  self-knowledge  rather  than  to  the 
creature  of  passion. 

Ignatius's  active  temperament  would  not  long 
content  itself  with  the  quiet  of  Manresa.  In  1523, 
begging  his  way,  he  journeyed  to  Jerusalem,  in  the 
spirit  of  a  mediaeval  pilgrim,  but  with  a  missionary 
zeal  also  which  bade  him  hope  to  make  that  holy 
city  the  scene  of  labors  for  the  conversion  of  unbe- 
lievers. The  Franciscans  there  in  control  viewed  his 
plans  with  disfavor  and  forced  him  to  return  to 
Spain.  Convinced  that  if  he  was  to  influence  men 
of  culture  he  must  himself  become  a  man  of  learn- 
ing, he  entered  a  boys'  class  in  the  rudiments  of 
Latin  at  Barcelona.  Two  years  later  he  began  the 
study  of  philosophy  and  theology  at  Alcala,  and 
pursued  them  further  at  Salamanca.  But  he  was 
always  the  man  of  action,  and  in  all  these  places  of 
his  sojourn,  Ignatius  won  disciples;  yet  his  activity 
drew  upon  him  the  suspicions  of  the  Spanish  eccle- 
siastical authorities,  he  was  repeatedly  cast  into  the 
bishop's  prison  at  Alcala,  and  again  at  Salamanca, 
as  an  ahiuibrado — that  is,  a  heretic  claiming  mysti- 


Ignatius  Loyola.  373 

cal  illumination — and  examined  as  to  his  ortho- 
doxy, though  happily  without  quite  coming  into  the 
clutches  of  the  royal  inquisitors.  It  throws  an  illu- 
minating light  on  the  repressive  and  inevitably 
deadening  effect  of  the  anti-heretical  zeal  of  Spain 
that  so  eminent  a  son  of  the  Roman  Church  should 
so  nearly  have  perished  at  the  hands  of  its  would-be 
defenders.  Though  this  persecution  in  no  way  broke 
Ignatius's  spirit,  it  cost  him  all  but  a  few  women  of 
his  Spanish  following,  and  led  him  to  transfer  the 
scene  of  his  studies,  in  1528,  to  Paris.  In  much  of 
Spain  he  was  long  without  special  recognition,  and 
such  leaders  of  the  Spanish  Awakening  as  Melchior 
Cano  always  looked  upon  him  with  aversion. 

Very  important  years  were  those  of  Ignatius's 
student  life  at  Paris.  They  witnessed  the  growing 
strife  between  rising  humanism  and  the  old  scholas- 
ticism that  yet  dominated  the  university.  In  them 
fell  Cop's  daring  address  and  Calvin's  flight.  They 
beheld  the  increasing  stringency  of  the  government 
against  Protestant  sympathizers,  the  death  of  Ber- 
quin,  and  the  posting  of  the  placards.  It  was  charac- 
teristic of  Ignatius,  however,  that  he  took  no  public 
part  in  any  of  the  discussions  of  these  eventful 
years.  But  he  labored  assiduously  and  by  every 
means  in  his  power  to  win  disciples  among  his  fellow- 
students.  Many  came  in  some  measure  under  his 
influence,  but  his  intimate  disciples  were  few — Pierre 
Favre,  a  Savoyard  of  humble  birth  ;  Francisco  de 
Xavier,  an  ambitious  noble  sprung  from  the  most 
eminent  family  in  Navarre;  Diego  Lainez,  a  brilliant, 
learned,  persuasive  Spanish  student  who  had  come  to 


374  '^^^^  Reformatzoji. 

Paris  from  Alcala ;  Alonso  Salmeron,  the  ablest 
preacher  and  the  most  learned  theologian  of  the 
little  company;  with  them  Nicolo  Bobadilla,  a  Span- 
iard ;  Simon  Rodriguez,  a  Portuguese,  and,  a  little 
later,  Claude  Jay  of  Geneva,  of  diplomatic  gifts  ; 
Pascal  Brouet,  a  Netherlander  of  moderate  talents, 
and  Jean  Codure,  a  Frenchman,  soon  to  be  removed 
by  death.  With  the  six  first-named  of  these  disci- 
ples, Ignatius  entered  into  common  vows  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Mary  on  Montmartre,  then  just  out  of 
Paris,  on  August  15,  1534;  the  associates  pledging 
themselves  to  engage  in  missionary  labors  in  Pales- 
tine, or,  should  that  prove  impossible,  wherever  the 
pope  should  direct.  It  was  not  yet  an  order  that 
they  planned,  though  that  it  was  soon  to  become. 
It  was  a  student  association  for  missionary  effort; 
but  its  animating  impulses  were  the  presence  and  the 
ideas  of  Ignatius.  From  Paris  the  movement,  in 
this  early  and  comparatively  free  form,  was  carried 
speedily  to  the  universities  of  Louvain  and  Cologne. 
Reasons  of  health  sent  Ignatius  to  his  Spanish 
home  in  1535,  but  the  next  year  he  and  his  Parisian 
associates  met  at  Venice,  intent  on  carrying  into 
action  their  purpose  of  going  to  the  Holy  Land. 
Here  they  won  the  favor  of  Contarini,  and  the  ill- 
will  of  Caraffa,  who,  perhaps,  saw  in  them  a  danger 
to  his  Theatines.  At  Easter,  1537,  they  appeared 
before  Paul  III.,  in  Rome,  and  won  his  approval  for 
their  plans  ;  but  these  proved  impossible  of  fulfil- 
ment by  reason  of  war  between  Venice  and  the 
Turks,  and  the  companions  devoted  themselves  to 
street  preaching  in  the  cities  of  northern  Italy.    A 


The  Society  of  Jesus.  375 

year  later,  the  mission  to  Palestine  being  evidently 
beyond  their  power,  Ignatius,  Faber  and  Lainez 
again  sought  the  pope.  Their  thought  had  devel- 
oped. They  would  now  gain  papal  approval  for  their 
organization  as  an  association  to  labor  where  the  pope 
should  see  fit  to  appoint  for  the  spread  of  the  Roman 
faith;  and  now  Ignatius  bethought  himself  of  a  fitting 
name.  Italy  had  seen  many  military  companies  in  the 
service  of  worldly  princes — his  would  be  the  Societas 
Jesu,  the  military  Company  of  Jesus,  for  a  higher 
warfare  ;  but,  like  them,  as  far  as  possible  soldierly 
in  its  underlying  conceptions.  Against  the  nick- 
name, Jesuits,  which  speedily  became  its  popular 
designation,  the  Society  protested  in  vain.  Here  at 
Rome  Ignatius  encountered  difficulties  that  taxed  all 
his  skill.  The  charges  of  unorthodoxy  that  had  been 
previously  brought  against  him  were  repeated.  The 
Roman  curia  was  averse  to  the  establishment  of  any 
new  orders.  But  at  last  opposition  was  overcome, 
largely  through  the  powerful  impress  of  Ignatius's 
personality  on  Pope  Paul  III.,  and  a  bull  of  Septem- 
ber 27,  1540,  gave  formal  sanction  to  the  Jesuit 
order,  though  limiting  its  membership  to  sixty — a 
requirement  that  was  three  years  later  abandoned. 
At  its  head  was  a  "general  ;"  and  none  but  Ignatius 
could  be  thought  of  for  that  office  at  the  first  election 
in  1541. 

During  this  period  of  waiting,  the  companions 
had  begun  to  sketch  the  outline  of  their  constitu- 
tion; but  though  its  essential  features  were  fashioned 
during  the  lifetime  of  Ignatius,  it  was  only  gradu- 
ally completed.      To   Ignatius,   however,    its  pecu- 


376  The  Reformation. 

liarities  were  due.  In  his  view,  the  order  was  no 
monastic  association  of  those  seeking  salvation  by 
separation  from  the  world,  but  a  company  of  priests 
bound  together  by  love  and  by  desire  to  labor  for 
their  fellow-men.  Few  were  fitted  for  its  member- 
ship, Ignatius  believed  ;  and  hence  great  care  was 
to  be  exercised  in  selecting  its  recruits,  and  the  order 
itself  could  at  any  time  expel  any  unsuitable  com- 
panion. By  the  time  that  Ignatius  had  obtained 
the  authorization  of  the  order  from  Paul  III.,  he 
had  come  to  feel  that  a  further  bond  than  love  for 
one's  fellow-men  was  needful  to  unite  the  company 
as  a  whole,  and  that  he  found  in  the  military  con- 
ception of  obedience.  As  in  a  regiment  of  soldiers, 
so  in  the  Company  of  Jesus  each  must  make  his  su- 
perior's will  his  own,  and  he  must  do  so  willingly 
and  cheerfully.  Obedience  is  the  first  of  duties  ; 
and  the  commands  of  the  superior  must  be  regarded 
as  those  of  Christ.  And,  as  with  the  well-drilled 
soldier  a  prolonged  exercise  in  arms  is  necessary 
before  he  is  fit  for  battle,  so  Ignatius  believed  a 
long  spiritual  training  essential  to  readiness  for 
spiritual  struggle.  As  speedily  developed,  entrance 
on  the  Jesuit  order  implied  a  two  years'  novitiate 
disciplined  by  the  Exercitia  Spiritualia,  and  by  the 
practice  of  humility  and  obedience.  Then  followed 
reception  into  the  order  by  the  assumption  of  the 
three  vows — obedience,  poverty,  chastity.  Some 
so  received  remained  at  this  grade  as  lay  associates  ; 
but  those  who  had  the  priesthood  in  view,  as  was 
the  original  intention  regarding  all  and  continued 
true  regarding  most  of  those  admitted  to  member- 


The  Society  of  Jesus.  2)77 

ship,  now  began  a  long  period  of  study  as  "ap- 
proved scholars  "  of  the  classics  in  a  college  of  the 
order.  Then,  after  a  similar  course  of  theologic 
training,  they  received  ordination  and  were  ad- 
mitted "coadjutors."  From  these  "coadjutors" 
a  very  few  became  in  the  strictest  sense  members  of 
the  Company,  by  a  fourth  vow — that  of  obedience 
to  the  pope  in  missionary  service  among  heathen  or 
heretics.  Training  and  selection,  these  were  the 
principles  impressed  upon  the  order.  In  a  true 
sense,  it  resembled  an  army  with  its  varied  ranks  of 
ofKcers  and  its  privates.  Yet,  though  military  in 
conception,  its  system  made  the  order  of  the  Jesuits 
something  widely  different  from  an  uncontrolled 
despotism.  At  its  head  stood  a  "general,"  to 
whom  implicit  obedience  was  due  ;  but  he  was 
elected  for  life  by  the  "general  congregation," 
which  could  depose  him  in  necessity  ;  and  he  had  a 
confessor,  an  "admonitor,"  and  several  assistants 
placed  by  his  side,  as  in  some  sense  a  cabinet.  By 
this  cabinet  the  general  congregation  could  be 
assembled.  Each  large  administrative  subdivision, 
as  a  country,  was  under  the  superintendence  of  a 
"provincial,"  appointed  by  the  general,  who  also 
named  the  heads  of  the  houses  and  schools.  And 
all  were  bound  together  and  made  known  to  the 
general  and  his  assistants  by  a  constant  series  of 
letters  and  reports  involving  an  elaborate  system  of 
mutual  surveillance,  and  enabling  the  general  to 
keep  track  of  the  inner  workings  of  the  order  and  to 
know  the  character  of  its  members.  Activity  and 
many-sidedness  were  impressed  upon  the  order  by 


3  yS  The  Reformation. 

the  founder.  Its  members  should  be  free  for  any- 
fitting  service  ;  hence  they  had  no  lengthy  daily 
religious  duties,  such  as  take  a  large  portion  of  the 
time  of  monks.  They  should  be  free  to  enter  any 
land  ;  hence  they  had  no  prescribed  costume.  Any 
unobtrusive  garb,  Ignatius  thought  fitting  ;  but  it 
must  be  neat — "he  who  loves  poverty  need  not 
love  dirt,"  was  Ignatius's  characteristic  dictum. 
In  general,  however,  the  order  has  modelled  its 
costume  on  that  of  the  Spanish  priesthood.  It 
was,  indeed,  a  marvellous  instrument  that  Ignatius 
fashioned — a  society  knit  together  by  few  of  the 
ties  of  common  dress,  occupation  and  residence,  by 
which  the  older  orders  were  joined  ;  a  society  as 
far  as  possible  international  in  character  ;  a  society 
which  found  its  union  in  likeness  of  spirit  and  de- 
votion to  a  common  cause.  And  the  means  by 
which  he  sought  to  accomplish  this  end  were  no  less 
remarkable.  In  an  age  dominated  by  individualism, 
Ignatius  founded  a  society  in  which  large  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  spiritually,  intellectually  and 
physically  was  sought,  in  which  room  was  found  for 
the  exercise  of  the  most  varied  and  highly  trained 
talents  ;  but  in  which  all  this  high-wrought  indi- 
vidualism was  made  subservient  by  an  obedience 
which  saw  in  the  will  of  the  superior  the  ultimate 
law.  It  was  the  most  cunningly  devised  instrument 
that  the  human  brain  ever  conceived — forged  for  a 
single  purpose  from  polished  and  independent  ele- 
ments. It  appealed  to  two  of  the  strongest  motives 
that  men  can  feel — labor  for  others  and  for  self- 
development  in  the  service  of  God;  but  it  conditioned 


The  Society  of  Jesus.  379 


its  answer  to  this  appeal  on  a  self-surrender  and  an 
obedience  that,  while  leaving  room  for  a  high  de- 
gree of  individuality,  abdicates  the  highest  exercises 
of  the  individual  judgment  and  will. 

Ignatius's  desire  that  his  Society  should — to  use 
his  favorite  Pauline  quotation — be  "  made  all  things 
to  all  men,"  appeared  in  his  efforts  in  Rome  itself, 
begun  even  before  the  formal  establishment  of  the 
order,  but  developed  chiefly  after  his  election  to 
the  generalship,  and  involving  no  less  various  labors 
than  missions  to  the  Jews  of  the  Ghetto,  the  care 
of  orphans,  the  limitation  of  beggars,  the  reform  of 
women  of  evil  life,  the  regeneration  of  nunneries, 
improvement  in  the  pawnbroking  system,  establish- 
ment of  schools,  beside  the  more  usual  work  of 
preaching.  But  the  activity  of  the  order  flowed  out 
from  Rome  speedily  over  all  Europe  and  beyond 
the  bounds  of  Christendom.  Of  its  missions  to  the 
heathen  there  will  be  occasion  to  speak  later  in  this 
chapter.  By  1542,  its  preachers  were  laboring  in 
northern  Italy,  aiding  that  intensifying  Roman  poli- 
cy illustrated  in  the  reorganization  of  the  Roman 
Inquisition  in  that  year.  Lainez  was  preaching  at 
Venice,  Favre  at  Parma  and  Piacenza,  BrouSt  at 
Foligno.  Soon  they  had  foot  in  Florence,  Genoa, 
Bologna  and  Naples.  In  Venice  and  Florence,  es- 
pecially, they  encountered  much  opposition.  They 
were  viewed  as  the  advanced  guard  of  a  papacy  of 
whose  pretensions  local  independence  was  not  a 
little  jealous ;  but  they  won  their  way.  Even 
earlier,  1540,  Ignatius's  cousin,  Araoz,  was  laboring 
for  the  order  in  Spain,  and  reached  Madrid  as  its 


380  The  Reformation. 

advocate  in  1542.  Here  it  was  vigorously  attacked 
with  the  charge  of  affinity  to  the  aluinb7'ados  which 
had  earlier  been  urged  against  Ignatius  ;  but  on  the 
conversion,  in  1546,  of  Duke  Francisco  Borgia  of 
Gandia,  the  chief  noble  of  Aragon  and  viceroy  of 
Catalonia,  destined  to  be  Ignatius's  second  suc- 
cessor in  the  generalship,  the  order  won  a  position 
from  which  it  could  not  be  dislodged.  By  Rodri- 
guez, aided  by  the  fame  and  influence  of  Xavier, 
who  went  to  India  under  the  auspices  of  the  king, 
Portugal  was  won  for  the  Jesuits  in  1541  and  1542. 
In  France,  where  the  Society  had  received  its  first 
organization,  it  made  its  way  more  slowly.  Allowed 
by  Henry  II.  to  establish  a  college  at  Paris  in  1550, 
it  was  formally  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne  four 
years  later ;  but  it  won  the  powerful  support  of  the 
Guise  family  and  gained  a  sure  footing  by  1561. 
The  same  period  saw  its  permanent  establishment 
in  the  Netherlands.  Even  in  regions  of  prevail- 
ingly Roman  sympathies  it  had  to  fight  its  way  ; 
but  everywhere  it  showed  itself  the  foremost  sup- 
porter of  the  papacy.  And  nowhere  was  its  suc- 
cess more  remarkable  than  in  Germany.  Foreign 
to  that  land  in  speech  and  thought,  unable  at  first 
to  send  a  German  member  thither,  its  first  repre- 
sentative was  Pierre  Favre  in  1540,  whom  Le  Jay 
and  Bobadilla  speedily  followed.  But,  in  the  pov- 
erty of  contemporary  German  Catholicism  in  effi- 
cient defenders,  the  friends  of  Rome  grasped  eagerly 
for  the  aid  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  In  its  first 
German  conquest,  the  Hollander,  Peter  Kanis  of 
Nimwegen  (Canisius,  1 521-1597),  whom  Favre  won, 


Work  of  the  Society.  381 

in  1543,  while  Kanis  was  a  student  at  Cologne,  the 
order  gained  not  merely  a  powerful  preacher  and 
the  author  of  the  most  popular  of  Catholic  catechisms 
that  originated  on  German  soil  (1554  and  1566),  but 
a  strenuous  opponent  of  Protestantism  who  taught 
in  the  universities  at  Ingolstadt  (1549)  and  Vienna 
(1552),  labored  in  Prague  (1555)  and  Poland  (1558), 
and  proved  a  mighty  force  in  encouraging  Roman 
sympathizers  and  checking  the  further  progress  of 
Lutheranism.  Bavaria,  under  Duke  Wilhelm  IV., 
welcomed  the  Jesuits  in  1549;  Austria,  under  Fer- 
dinand, gave  them  place  in   1551,  and  Bohemia  in 

1555-^ 

This  manifold  activity  of  the  Jesuit  order  was 
made  possible  by  its  rapid  growth.  Though  Igna- 
tius's  preference  was  always  for  quality  rather  than 
numbers  in  its  membership,  and  though  only  thirty- 
five  were  living  who  had  taken  the  fourth  vow  which 
admitted  them  to  the  inner  circle,  when  the  first 
general  closed  his  eventful  life  at  Rome  on  July  31, 
1556,  the  order  counted  more  than  a  thousand  mem- 
bers, settled  in  a  hundred  places.  Ignatius's  work 
was  carried  on,  1557  to  1565,  by  the  second  general, 
Diego  Lainez  (1512-65),  and,  indeed,  further  devel- 
oped in  the  perfection  of  its  constitution  and  the 
widening  of  its  educational  work.  The  third  gen- 
eral, who  ruled  from  1565  to  1572,  was  that  eminent 
trophy  of  the  early  activity  of  the  Society  in  Spain, 
Francisco  Borgia,  under  whom  the  political  activity 
of  the  order  was  markedly  emphasized.  Everard 
Mercurian,  general  from  1572  to  1581,  was  a  man 
of  meagre  force  compared  with  his  great  predeces- 


v) 


82  The  Reformation. 


sors  ;  but  under  the  Neapolitan,  Claudio  Acquaviva, 
from  1 581  to  161 5,  the  order  came  again  under  the 
direction  of  a  powerful  personality.  But  half  a 
century  of  growth  and  power  had  disposed  it  to  an 
interference  in  politics  which  led  to  much  opposition 
even  by  Catholic  sovereigns.  Its  moral  teachings 
had  begun  to  be  widely  questioned  ;  and  disputes 
had  arisen  in  the  order  itself.  From  the  death  of 
Acquaviva  it  suffered  a  decline  ;  but  it  is,  in  spite  of 
opposition,  criticism,  and  temporary  suppression, 
to  the  present  day,  the  strongest  organization  in  the 
Roriian  Church. 

Many  causes  may  be  assigned  for  its  great  success. 
It  was  an  order  which,  in  its  early  years  at  least, 
appealed  primarily  to  men  of  intellect  and  position. 
It  enlisted  in  its  service  some  of  the  ablest  of  the 
sons  of  the  Roman  Church.  Its  work  was  one  which 
was  eminently  adapted  to  the  times.  Of  the  vari- 
ous elements  by  which  that  work  was  characterized, 
that  of  preaching  was  historically  the  first.  Ignatius, 
Lainez,  Salmeron,  Xavier,  were  all  preachers  of 
force.  And  they  understood  the  art  of  conveying 
their  views  while  avoiding  direct  controversy  in  the 
pulpit.  Not  only  did  the  Jesuit  preaching  empha- 
size obedience  to  the  Roman  see,  it  laid  weight  on 
those  features  of  Roman  teaching  and  practice  which 
are  most  opposed  to  Protestantism.  The  adoration 
of  the  Virgin  was  strongly  enforced.  Ignatius  him- 
self went  so  far  in  this  worship  as  to  affirm  it  to  be 
one  of  the  blessings  of  the  Supper  that  in  partaking 
of  it  he  received  not  merely  the  flesh  of  Christ,  but 
that  of  His  mother.     A  second  characteristic  of  the 


Characteristics  of  the  Order.         383 

work  of  the  Jesuits  was  its  insistence  on  a  far  more 
frequent  participation  in  the  Supper  than  was  cus- 
tomary in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
To  Ignatius's  thinking,  such  participation  at  least 
once  a  month,  and  if  possible  weekly,  was  the  prime 
means  of  salvation.  It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out 
how  this  view  tended  to  strengthen  the  conception 
of  the  Church  as  a  corporation  endowed  with  mirac-  ' 
ulousand  in  themselves  life-giving  sacraments  which 
has  always  been  cherished  in  the  Roman  com- 
munion. 

But  participation  in  the  Supper  implied  frequent 
confession,  and  the  Society  made  this  requirement 
one  of  its  main  avenues  to  popular  influence.  The 
early  part  of  the  Reformation  era  saw  confession 
largely  discredited.  Protestants  rejected  it ;  the 
unref ormed  Roman  clergy  and  monks  were  often  not 
of  such  character  as  to  invite  the  confidence  which 
confession  implies.  The  Jesuits  undertook  to  re- 
vive and  extend  the  use  of  the  confessional  with 
notable  success.  For  this  work  papal  privileges 
gave  the  order  special  powers  to  grant  absolution  in 
cases  ordinarily  reserved  for  the  action  of  higher 
authorities  than  those  of  simple  priests.  But  this 
function  which  brought  the  Jesuit  into  contact  with 
the  secret  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  labored,  and  lent  to  him,  in  turn,  much  of 
his  influence,  proved  the  doorway  to  what  has 
seemed  to  many  in  the  Roman  communion,  as  well 
as  out  of  it,  a  debasement  of  moral  values.  It  was 
not  merely  the  Jesuit  desire  to  be  "  all  things  to  all 
men" — that  is,  so  to  meet  the  thoughts  and  feel- 


384  The  Reformation. 

ings  of  those  among  whom  they  labored  as  to  instil 
their  view  of  religion — that  led  to  this  result.  The 
Jesuit  conception  of  sin  was  superficial.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  Ignatius  freed  himself  from  his 
overwhelming  sense  of  sinfulness,  not,  as  Luther  did, 
by  trust  in  an  external  promise,  as  he  believed,  of 
absolute  divine  authority  written  in  God's  Word,  but 
by  a  resolution  to  put  the  recollection  of  the  past 
behind  him  as  a  temptation  of  evil.  The  Jesuit 
practice  tended  to  the  development  of  a  system  of 
casuistry — that  is,  to  the  creation  of  an  elaborate 
standard  of  minimum  requirements  for  the  reception 
of  an  effective  absolution.  And  several  elements 
combined  to  render  this  casuistry  unstrenuous.  One 
was  the  revival  and  extension  of  mediaeval  proba- 
bilism — the  view  that  a  man  is  justified  in  a  particu- 
lar course  of  action  if  he  can  get  the  approval  of 
some  recognized  authority  for  it,  even  though  his 
own  judgment  may  not  surely  be  convinced  of  its 
rightfulness.  In  its  classic  Jesuit  form,  it  was  not 
developed  till  more  than  forty  years  after  the  death 
of  Ignatius,  by  Gabriel  Vasquez  and  Antonio  Es- 
cobar, whose  work  excited  the  hostility  of  the 
famous  French  Jansenist,  Blaise  Pascal,  in  1656;  but 
its  germs  are  to  be  seen  in  the  teachings  of  Ignatius 
himself.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  especially  in 
dealing  with  those  whose  political  influence  it  was 
desirable  to  secure,  this  doctrine  was  a  real  source  of 
abuse.  A  second  element  was  the  Jesuit  emphasis 
on  intention.  The  phrase  in  which  this  principle  is 
often  stated,  "the  end  justifies  the  means,"  seems 
not  to  have  been  used  by  any  Jesuit  of  authority, 


Characteristics  of  the  Order.         3 85 

though  utterances  of  a  somewhat  similar  but  prob- 
ably not  so  sweeping  import  may  be  found  in  their 
writings.  But  to  the  soldier-spirit  the  result  is  more 
important  than  the  method  of  its  attainment ;  and 
the  distinction  between  "deadly"  and  "  venial  " 
sins  which  Ignatius  drew  aided  in  an  overvaluation 
of  intention  at  the  expense  of  its  associated  acts. 
To  his  thinking,  the  sin  became  "deadly"  when  the 
will  consents.  This  conception  had  in  it  the  germ 
of  a  third  element  developed  by  the  theologians  of 
the  order  after  the  time  of  Ignatius,  that  that  only 
is  fully  sin,  in  the  theological  sense,  which  is  done 
with  a  clear  consciousness  of  its  sinful  character  and 
with  deliberate  concurrence  of  the  will.  No  doubt 
the  more  spiritually-minded  members  of  the  Society 
opposed  the  grosser  forms  in  which  these  principles 
were  applied,  especially  after  their  full  development 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  But  with  many  Jesuits, 
to  say  the  least,  mental  reservation  came  to  be  justi- 
fied, so  that  a  man  was  not  held  bound  to  give  a 
correct  impression  even  on  oath  ;  the  fear  of  pun- 
ishment, as  in  the  later  middle  ages,  was  regarded 
as  sufScient  for  effective  repentance  ;  and  religion 
adapted  in  many  ways  to  the  customs  of  a  corrupt 
society. 

The  political  activity  of  the  Jesuit  order  was  the 
natural  outgrowth  of  its  principles  and  position, 
though  hardly  included  in  its  original  intention.  A 
body  of  men,  international  in  membership,  every- 
where seeking  to  win  influence  over  the  most  emi- 
nent in  civil  and  religious  life,  bound  together  by 
strict  obedience  to  generals  who,  in   the  cases  of 


386  The  Reformatio7i. 

Ignatius,  Lainez  and  Borgia,  at  least,  were  of  sur- 
passing political  gifts,  and  reporting  to  the  gen- 
eral the  minutest  affairs  of  the  lands  in  which  its 
members  were  stationed,  could  not  but  become  po- 
litical. No  wonder  that  the  Jesuits  proved  the  chief 
agents  in  winning  back  many  of  the  princes  of  Ger- 
many to  the  Roman  obedience,  that  they  were  the 
terror  of  such  sovereigns  as  Elizabeth  of  England, 
or  that  the  governments  even  of  the  most  Catholic 
lands  came  to  look  upon  their  activity  with  dread. 
Comparable  only  with  their  successful  use  of  the 
confessional  and  of  political  influence  and  intrigue 
to  advance  the  interests  of  the  Roman  Church  was 
their  employment  of  education.  This,  like  their 
political  activity,  was  not  part  of  the  original  purpose 
of  the  order,  save  as  included  perhaps  in  its  general 
design  of  labor  for  others  among  various  ways  in  that 
of  religious  teaching.  But  the  clear  insight  of 
Ignatius  speedily  perceived  the  advantages  to  be 
derived  from  a  control  of  education  in  a  much  larg-er 
sense.  At  first  he  simply  aimed  to  gather  the  stu- 
dents of  Jesuit  sympathies  at  a  particular  university 
together  in  a  "  college,"  not  for  special  instruction, 
but  for  the  development  together  of  a  common 
spiritual  life.  Of  these  colleges,  the  first  was  that 
established,  in  1542,  at  Coimbra,  in  Portugal.  But, 
in  1547,  that  eminent  Spanish  convert,  Duke  Fran- 
cisco Borgia,  put  his  little  university  at  Gandia  as  a 
whole  into  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits.  Messina,  in 
Sicily,  speedily  thereafter  gave  its  university  into 
Jesuit  control.  More  important  yet  was  the  found- 
ing by  Ignatius,  in  1550,  of  the  Collegiimi  Romanum 


Jesuit  Education.  387 

at  Rome  for  the  training  of  Jesuits  and  of  students 
unconnected  with  the  order  ;  and,  two  years  there- 
after, of  the  Collegium  Germaniciim  in  the  same  city, 
with  special  reference  to  preparation  for  labor  in 
Protestant  lands.  This  was  but  the  beginning  of  a 
great  educational  activity,  the  Jesuits  obtaining  a 
foothold  in  existing  educational  foundations  or  or- 
ganizing new  schools  wherever  their  labors  ex- 
tended. These  schools  were  not  popular  in  the 
sense  of  attempting  to  educate  the  people  as  a 
whole — for  that  the  Jesuits  had  less  interest — but 
they  made  a  powerful  appeal  to  the  well-to-do  and 
the  noble  classes,  and  the  fame  of  their  instruction 
soon  drew  to  them  many  who  were  thereby  led  into 
the  Roman  fold.  For  this  end,  the  course  of  in- 
struction was  admirably  planned.  As  Ignatius 
availed  himself  of  the  individualism  of  his  age,  and 
yet  made  it  subservient  to  a  single  purpose  in  his 
Society  at  large,  so  in  the  schools  the  Jesuits  took 
into  service  the  admired  humanistic  culture  of  the 
Renascence,  and  yet  held  it  in  absolute  obedience 
to  the  Church.  Latin  and  Greek  were  studied,  dis- 
putations and  debates,  within  strict  bounds,  gave 
training  in  public  speech,  and  the  advanced  student 
passed  on  to  Aristotle,  and  thence  to  scholastic 
theology.  Throughout  the  course  a  mild  but  posi- 
tive and  rigid  superintendence  was  exercised,  while 
the  ambition  of  the  student  was  stimulated  by  com- 
petition, and  his  conduct  regulated  by  the  watch,  or 
rather  espionage,  which  each  was  encouraged  to 
keep  on  his  associates. 

But  of  all  the  labors  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  that 


388  The  Reformation. 

in  the  field  of  foreign  missions  best  illustrated  Ig- 
natius's  original  intention  and  displayed  its  most 
winsome  features.  The  work  of  that  Society  was 
not,  indeed,  the  first  or  the  only  conspicuous  effort 
of  the  Roman  Church  to  extend  the  borders  of 
Christendom  during  the  Reformation  age.  To  a 
large  degree,  foreign  missions  during  this  period 
were  a  monopoly  of  the  Roman  communion.  The 
reasons  are  obvious.  Till  the  rise  of  the  sea-power 
of  Holland  and  of  England,  the  Catholic  sovereigns 
of  Spain,  Portugal  and  Italy  were  the  only  rulers  in 
contact  with  un-Christian  nations  among  whom  mis- 
sions might  be  hopefully  undertaken.  Luther  never 
had  the  opportunity  to  promote  missions  ;  he  never 
felt  their  claim.  Calvin,  on  a  single  occasion,  that 
of  the  sending  of  Villegaignon's  French  colony  to 
Brazil  in  1555  and  1556,  was  given — and  improved — 
an  occasion  to  show  his  interest  in  this  aspect  of  the 
advancing  kingdom  of  God.  But,  till  the  rise  of 
English  and  Dutch  colonies  at  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century  opened  the  way  and  awakened 
the  desire  for  Protestant  missions,  the  feeling  was 
widespread  in  Protestant  circles  that  since  the  days 
of  the  Apostles'  ministry  no  missionary  obligation 
lay  upon  the  Church. 

For  the  Roman  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  ac- 
cess to  the  heathen  was  easy  ;  and  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  great  discoveries,  missionary  work  was 
undertaken.  Little  as  their  lives  oftentimes  con- 
formed to  the  Gospel,  a  missionary  desire  to  increase 
the  domain  of  the  Church  was  undeniably  one  of 
the  motives  that  spurred  on  the  Spanish  and  Por- 


Missio7is.  389 

tuguese  discoverers  and  conquerors.  In  their  wake 
missionaries  of  the  monastic  orders,  chiefly  Francis- 
cans and  Dominicans,  speedily  followed  ;  and,  in 
spite  of  the  cruelties  practised  on  the  natives  of  the 
New  World  by  its  new  masters,  they  gathered 
many  converts.  By  1535,  the  Franciscans  alone 
claimed  twelve  hundred  thousand.  The  work  was 
inevitably  superficial ;  but  a  recollection  of  the  life 
and  character  of  such  a  man  as  the  Dominican  mis- 
sionary, Bartolome  de  las  Casas  (1474-1566),  shows 
the  devotion  and  Christian  zeal  by  which  the  nobler 
leaders  in  its  prosecution  were  animated.  To  the 
labors  of  explorers,  governors  and  missionaries  of 
the  Roman  Church,  the  Christianity  that  now  exists 
in  all  of  South  and  Central  America,  and  in  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  North  America,  is  well-nigh 
wholly  due.  The  Portuguese  and  Spanish  settle- 
ments in  the  Orient,  also,  were  accompanied  by  the 
erection  of  churches  and  the  exercise  of  some  mis- 
sionary activity  from  their  beginning. 

The  story  of  Jesuit  missions  begins  with  the  labors 
of  the  most  famous  of  all  Roman  missionaries  of  the 
Reformation  age,  Ignatius's  early  disciple  and  com- 
panion, Francisco  de  Xavier  (1506-52).  At  the  re- 
quest of  John  III.  of  Portugal,  this  gifted  nobleman 
was  appointed  to  the  work  in  the  East  by  Ignatius  in 
1540;  and,  in  May,  1542,  he  reached  the  first  scene 
of  his  missionary  labors — the  Indian  west-coast  city 
of  Goa,  the  chief  seat  of  the  Portuguese  in  the  Orient. 
Between  that  arrival  and  his  death,  in  a  fisherman's 
hut,  on  the  coast  of  China  near  Canton,  a  few  months 
more  than  ten  years  intervened.    They  were  years 


390  The   Reformatiofi. 

of  marvellous  activity.  He  labored  for  the  corrupt- 
ed, yet  nominally  Christian,  population  of  Goa,  he 
taught  the  pearl-fishers  of  extreme  southern  India, 
he  preached  in  Tinnevelli  and  in  Malacca,  he  tried  to 
bring  the  Nestorian  Thomas  Christians  of  the  Mala- 
bar coast  into  communion  with  Rome.  He  baptized 
great  multitudes.  He  founded,  in  1542,  a  college  at 
Goa  to  facilitate  the  training  of  Europeans  and 
natives  for  mission  work.  In  1549,  he  entered  Japan 
and  labored  with  some  success  in  its  southern  prov- 
inces. At  his  death  he  was  just  on  the  point  of 
beginning  a  mission  in  China.  It  is  evident  from 
this  mere  recital  that  the  work  must  have  been 
superficial.  Not  even  Xavier's  amazing  facility  in 
the  acquisition  of  foreign  tongues  which  made  him 
master  of  twelve  languages  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
nor  his  powers  of  observation  of  strange  peoples  and 
insight  into  subjects  as  remote  from  missionary 
labor  as  trade  and  pecuniary  exchange,  nor  his  zeal 
in  seizing  every  opportunity  for  the  propagation  of 
his  faith,  could  render  it  other  than  superficial.  But 
Xavier's  influence  and  the  inspiration  of  his  exam- 
ple were  of  great  and  abiding  worth  ;  and  his  keen- 
eyed  reconnaissance  of  the  field  and  disposition  of 
forces  for  its  conquest  had  some  permanent  value. 
In  India  his  work  continued.  In  Japan  the  door 
remained  open,  and  Christianity  made  large  progress 
till  arrested  by  the  fearful  persecutions  of  the  first 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  China,  which 
Xavier  had  sought  to  enter,  was  reached  by  Matteo 
Ricci  in  1583,  and  a  work  which  appeared  to  be  full 
of  promise  begun.     But  in  all  the  Orient  the  Jesuit 


Missions.  391 

willingness  to  mingle  in  politics  made  trouble — no- 
tably in  Japan — and  in  China  an  over-readiness  to  be 
"all  things  to  all  men  "  led  to  concessions  to  Chinese 
ancestor-worship  which  roused  the  hostility  of  the 
Franciscans  and  Dominicans  when  they  entered  the 
same  field  in  the  seventeenth  century.  These  causes, 
which  were  also  manifest  in  India,  robbed  Catholic 
missions  in  the  Orient  of  much  of  their  anticipated 
success.    The  New  World  was  early  the  scene,  also, 
of  Jesuit  labors.     Charles  V.  had  scant  welcome  for 
them  on    Spanish   soil,    and    Philip    II.  was   never 
warmly  their  friend  ;  but  in  the  Portuguese  territory 
of    Brazil    they   were    cordially   received   in    1549. 
Spanish  reluctance  soon  vanished,  and  in  the  Span- 
ish territory  of  Paraguay  they  conducted  their  most 
remarkable  mission — the  erection,  in  the  early  part 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  of  a  state  in  which  the 
natives  should  be  completely  under  their  guidance 
and  from  which  hostile   influences   should    be  ex- 
cluded.    This  politico-religious    experiment   ended 
with  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  from  the  region  in 
1768.     In  North  America,  also,  missions  were  con- 
ducted by  many  religious  orders,  of  whom  the  Fran- 
ciscans  in    the    extreme  West    and   the   Jesuits  in 
Canada  were  the  most  conspicuous.    No  more  heroic 
page  of  missionary  endeavor  is  to  be  found  in  the 
story  of  Christian  missions  than  that  written  by  the 
French  Jesuits  of  Canada  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury.    Friction  between  different  orders  working  in 
the  same  field  and  a  desire  for  better  training  and 
organization  led  Gregory  XV.,  in  1622,  to  place  all 
the  missions  of  the  Roman  Church  under  the  super- 


392  The  Reformation. 


vision  of  a  board  at  Rome — the  Congregatio  de  Prop- 
aganda Fide. 

To  turn  from  the  work  of  these  men  of  action  to 
the  results  of  an  ecclesiastical  council,  in  an  enumera- 
tion of  the  principal  forces  of  the  counter-Reforma- 
tion, is  to  enter  what  might  appear  a  relatively  un- 
important field  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
among  the  potent  influences  of  reviving  Catholicism 
the  Council  of  Trent  deserves  high  rank.  The 
thought  of  a  general  council  as  a  means  of  healing 
the  evils  of  Christendom  was  entertained  by  all 
conservative  reform  parties  in  the  first  quarter  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  Luther  appealed  to  such  a 
council  in  1518,  the  German  Reichstag  repeatedly 
urged  it,  Charles  V.  looked  upon  it  as  the  most 
hopeful  of  all  agencies  for  permanent  reform.  But, 
as  the  Reformation  developed,  two  forces  appeared 
strongly  antagonistic  to  it — the  Protestants,  because 
they  had  come  to  disbelieve  that  infallibility  which 
the  middle  ages  had  credited  to  councils,  and  saw 
that  in  any  council  constituted  as  were  those  of  the 
fifteenth  century  they  would  form  a  hopeless  minor- 
ity ;  and  the  papacy,  because  it  feared  a  limitation 
of  its  powers.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  representatives  of  the  Spanish  Awakening 
strongly  favored  it,  and  found  their  leader  in 
Charles  V.  So  it  came  about  that  imperial  politics 
were  centred  on  securing  its  meeting,  that  the 
pope  was  at  last  persuaded  of  its  necessity,  that 
Paul  III.  called  it  to  meet  at  Mantua  in  1537,  that 
it  was  again  summoned  to  assemble  at  Trent  in 
1542,  and  met  in  that  most  Italian  of  the  towns  of  the 


Council  of  Trent.  393 

empire  at  last  for  effective  work  in  December,  I545« 
From  the  first,  two  opinions  were  held  as  to  its 
functions — that  of  the  emperor,  who  wished  the 
council  to  begin  with  reforms,  and  be  free  to  make 
such  moderate  doctrinal  concessions  as  might  be 
needed  to  unite  the  Protestants  to  the  older  com- 
munion after  his  politics  and  arms  had  forced  them 
to  recognize  the  council  as  a  fitting  arbiter,  and 
that  of  the  pope,  who  wished  the  council  simply 
to  define  Catholic  doctrine  against  Protestant  inno- 
vations. In  the  end,  the  pope's  wishes  were  those 
gratified.  The  emperor's  hopes  were  shattered  by 
the  uprising  of  the  German  Protestants  under  Moritz 
in  1552.  And  this  conflict  of  policy,  as  well  as  the 
wars  between  France  and  the  Habsburg  monarchs, 
gave  to  the  council  a  checkered  history.  Of  its 
sessions,  eight  are  reckoned  as  held  in  Trent,  from 
December,  1545,  to  March,  1547;  the  next  two  in 
Bologna,  whither  the  pope  partially  succeeded  in 
transferring  the  council,  in  April  and  June,  1547; 
then,  after  interruption,  six  sessions  more  in  Trent, 
from  May,  1551,  to  April,  1552;  and  at  last,  after 
nearly  ten  years  of  waiting,  nine  sessions  more  at 
Trent  between  January,  1562,  and  December,  1563, 
when  the  council  ended  its  work. 

In  its  membership  the  papal  party  was  predomi- 
nant from  the  first.  Neither  France  nor  Germany 
was  numerously  represented.  Spain  had  much  in- 
fluence. But  nearly  or  quite  two-thirds  of  the  coun- 
cil were  Italians.  A  decision  favoring  any  Prot- 
estant doctrine  was  therefore  not  to  be  anticipated. 
In  its  earlier  sessions  the  doctrinal  influence  of  the 


394  ^'^^  Reformation. 

great  Spanish  Dominican  theologians,  who  had  re- 
vived the  system  of  Aquinas,  Cano  and  De  Soto, 
was  strongly  felt,  and  gave  to  the  results  reached 
much  more  of  an  Augustinian  flavor  than  they  would 
have  possessed  had  they  been  formulated  half  a  cen- 
tury before.  But  the  Jesuits,  represented  chiefly  by 
two  Spanish  members  of  Ignatius's  original  student 
association,  which  was  the  germ  of  the  order — 
Lainez  and  Salmeron — won  increasing  influence  as 
the  council  went  on  ;  and  that  influence  was  strongly 
papal,  opposed  to  every  concession  that  might  seem 
to  conciliate  Protestantism,  and,  as  far  as  its  doc- 
trinal tendencies  went,  favorable  to  semi-Pelagian 
rather  than  to  Augustinian  views.  Both  Lainez  and 
Salmeron  went  to  Trent  as  theological  advisers  of 
the  papal  legates.  To  them  in  large  measure  a 
sharper  emphasis  of  the  points  wherein  Romanism 
differs  from  Protestantism  was  due — as  when  Lainez 
repressed  any  concessions  to  the  doctrine  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  alone  while  still  only  a  theological 
adviser ;  or  fought  the  allowance  of  the  cup  to  the 
laity,  which  Emperor  Ferdinand  desired,  and  op- 
posed the  even  more  important  contention  of  his 
Spanish  fellow-countrymen  that  bishops  possess 
their  administrative  authority  immediately  from 
God  and  not  through  delegation  by  the  pope,  when 
at  the  later  sessions  of  the  council  in  the  high  posi- 
tion of  general  of  his  order. 

The  main  result  of  the  Council  of  Trent  was  the 
formulation  of  Roman  doctrine  in  a  creed  strenu- 
ously opposed  to  the  characteristic  positions  of  Prot- 
estantism, and  presenting  a  compact  statement  of 


Tridenthie   Theology.  395 


the  theological  system  which  the  middle  ages  had 
wrought  out,  while  avoiding  many  of  the  disputed 
questions  which  rival  schools  of  mediaeval  theo- 
logians had  debated.  In  opposition  to  Protestant- 
ism it  was  exclusive  ;  in  regard  to  the  various  opin- 
ions within  the  Roman  Church  itself  it  was  inclusive. 
The  time  had  fully  come  when  the  interests  of  the 
Roman  communion  demanded  that  an  authoritative 
body  should  set  forth  the  Roman  creed.  Certain 
points  of  doctrine  had  been  touched  by  mediaeval 
councils — notably  by  that  of  Ferrara  and  Florence, 
wherein  the  union  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches 
was  apparently  brought  about  in  1439  ;  the  mediaeval 
popes  had  made  some  significant  declarations,  con- 
spicuously Eugene  IV.  in  consequence  of  the  coun- 
cil just  cited  ;  but  no  general  creed  had  been  formu- 
lated since  the  Athanasian  symbol,  and  the  ancient 
standards  did  not  meet  the  points  in  debate  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  middle  ages  had  produced 
great  doctrinal  expositions  and  opinions  of  popes 
and  theologians  on  this  or  that  question  of  faith  in 
abundance ;  but  not  a  compact  creed.  And  the 
Lutherans  had  had  such  a  creed,  since  1530,  in  the 
Augsburg  Confession — a  badge  of  fellowship,  a  test 
of  communion,  a  definite  and  authoritative  state- 
ment of  their  faith  to  be  read  of  all  men.  The 
Church  which  claimed  to  speak  with  absolute  au- 
thority could  not  afford  to  remain  less  definite  than 
the  Lutherans. 

Having  declared  in  the  first  of  its  doctrinal  de- 
crees that  the  Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan  Creed 
is  the   basal   symbol   of   the    Roman    Church,   the 


596  The  Reformation. 


council  felt  compelled  to  meet  the  question  that 
no  council  had  heretofore  faced,  but  which  the  Ref- 
ormation had  thrust  into  the  foreground — what  is 
the  deposit  of  truth  which  the  Church  regards  as 
authoritative  ?  To  the  Protestants  of  the  Reforma- 
tion period  that  truth  is  contained  in  the  Scriptures 
alone.  As  defined  by  the  council,  it  is  that  "con- 
tained in  the  written  books,  and  the  unwritten  tra- 
ditions which,  received  by  the  Apostles  from  the 
mouth  of  Christ  himself,  or  from  the  Apostles  them- 
selves, the  Holy  Ghost  dictating,  have  come  down 
even  unto  us."  The  canon  of  the  Bible  was  de- 
fined according  to  its  traditional  form,  thus  ascribing 
authority  to  certain  Old  Testament  books  which 
Protestants  reckoned  apocrypha ;  and,  what  was 
vastly  more  important,  tradition  was  set  on  an 
equality  with  Scripture.  The  Vulgate  translation 
was  declared  to  be  so  far  the  standard  "  that  no  one 
is  to  dare  or  presume  to  reject  it  under  any  pre- 
text whatever. "  All  right  of  private  judgment  in 
interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  was  rejected  "in 
matters  of  faith  and  of  morals,"  and  the  Church 
adjudged  the  sole  expounder  of  their  "  true  sense." 
Thus  several  fundamental  principles  of  Protestantism 
were  explicitly  repudiated,  though  the  interpretive 
power  of  the  pope  was  not  afBrmed — that  was  to  be 
the  work  of  the  Vatican  Council  more  than  three 
centuries  later. 

The  foundations  thus  determined,  the  council 
next  proceeded  to  meet  other  much-debated  Prot- 
estant positions  in  decrees  concerning  sin  and  justi- 
fication.    The  latter,  in  particular,  has  always  been 


Tridentine   Theology.  397 


regarded  as  a  masterpiece  of  creed-statement.     The 
task  involved  was  difficult.     It  must  reject  Protestant 
justification  by  faith  alone  ;  but  it  must  do  justice 
to   the  Thomist  emphasis  on  divine   grace,  which 
was  not  unfriendly  to  a  moderate   presentation  of 
that  doctrine,  however  opposed  the  Thomists  might 
be   to    Protestant    views   of    the    sacraments    and 
Church  ;  and  it  must  also  find  standing-ground  for 
a  doctrine  of  merit  derived  from  good  works.     Jus- 
tification, it  affirmed,  is  a  "translation  from  that 
state  wherein  man  is  born  a  child  of  the  first  Adam 
to  the   state  of   grace    .    .    .    through   the  second 
Adam,  Jesus  Christ. ' '     The  conditions  of  the  recep- 
tion of  this  divine  gift  are  faith,  which  is  confidence 
in    divine   revelation,   and   especially  in   the   truth 
'*  that  God  justifies  the  impious  by  his  grace  ;  "  and 
baptism,  "which  is  the  sacrament  of  faith" — or  at 
least  a  desire  for  baptism.     If  justification  is  lost  by 
mortal  sin,  penance  is  the  condition  of  its  restoration. 
Justification  is  free  in  that  it  is  merited  by  no  pre- 
ceding faith  or  works.     Man  cannot  be  justified  with- 
out God's  prevenient  grace,  though  he  has  free  will 
sufficient  to  cooperate  with  or  reject  the  gift.     And 
in  justification,  man  receives  not  merely  remission  of 
sins,  but  "  all  these  infused  at  once,  faith,  hope  and 
charity."     His  growth  in  these  Christian  virtues — 
"  the  increase  of  justification  received  " — is  aided  by 
"  the  observance  of  the  commandments  of  God  and 
of  the  Church,  faith  cooperating  with  good  works." 
These  good  works,  which  increase  justification,  have 
merit   which  deserves   eternal   life  ;    and    they   are 
truly  man's,  though  only  in  the  sense  that  divine 


398  The  Reformatio7i. 

grace  enables  him  to  do  them.  Thus,  while  saying 
much  with  which  a  Protestant  would  agree,  the 
decree  practically  allowed  full  room  for  a  system  of 
work-righteousness. 

The  next  step  of  the  council  was  to  afifirm  the 
sacramental  character  of  the  Roman  Church,  and 
the  dependence  of  justification  on  the  sacraments, 
"through  which  all  true  justice  [i.e.,  righteousness] 
either  begins,  or,  being  begun,  is  increased,  or,  being 
lost,  is  repaired."  The  sacraments  are  declared  to 
have  been  instituted  by  Christ,  and  are  fixed  as  the 
mediaeval  seven — "  Baptism,  Confirmation,  the  Eu- 
charist, Penance,  Extreme  Unction,  Order  [ordina- 
tion], and  Matrimony,"  Having  thus  set  forth  the 
theory  of  sacraments  in  general,  the  council  took  up 
the  explication  of  each  of  the  sacraments,  and  this 
work,  begun  during  its  first  session  at  Trent  in  1547, 
was  continued  through  its  second  session  there  in 
1 55 1,  and  completed  in  1562  and  1563.  In  general, 
the  traditional  mediaeval  positions  were  simply  given 
dogmatic  authority  ;  though,  as  the  middle  ages  had 
exhibited  much  diversity  of  opinion  in  minutiae,  a 
compromise  or  indefinite  attitude  was  assumed  on  a 
good  many  details  of  sacramental  theory,  but  the 
main  intent  of  the  whole  is  perfectly  definite.  The 
Church,  through  its  duly  consecrated  priesthood,  is 
the  sole  dispenser  of  sacraments,  which  bring  salva- 
tion to  all  who  receive  them  with  a  sincere  desire  to 
profit  by  them. 

Of  these  sacramental  definitions,  the  most  impor- 
tant, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  controversies  of 
the  age,  were  those  having  to  do  with  the  Supper. 


Tr 2 dentine   Theology.  399 

with  penance  and  with  ordination.  In  regard  to  the 
Eucharist,  it  is  affirmed  that,  at  the  consecration, 
the  substance  of  the  bread  and  wine  is  entirely  tran- 
substantiated into  the  substance  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ.  It  is  fitting,  therefore,  to  "  render 
in  veneration  the  worship  of  latria,  which  is  due  to 
the  true  God,  to  this  most  holy  sacrament."  The 
denial  of  the  cup  to  the  laity  is  held  to  be  a  law  of 
the  Church  which  only  the  Church  can  change.  The 
sacrificial  character  of  the  Supper  is  fully  maintained 
as  ''  truly  propitiatory,"  "  the  victim  "  being  '*  one 
and  the  same,  the  same  now  offering  by  the  ministry 
of  priests,  who  then  offered  Himself  on  the  cross." 
Hence  it  is  to  be  "offered  for  the  living  and  the 
dead  for  sins,  pains,  satisfactions,  and  other  necessi- 
ties." The  whole  "  canon  "  of  the  mass — criticised 
by  the  Protestants — is  approved,  and  its  celebration 
"  in  the  vulgar  tongue  only  "  is  condemned. 

In  regard  to  penance,  it  is  declared  to  be  the  sac- 
rament "  by  which  the  benefit  of  the  death  of  Christ 
is  applied  to  those  who  have  fallen  after  baptism." 
It  involves  contrition,  confession  and  satisfaction. 
Contrition  is  emphasized  in  the  Thomist  spirit,  and 
under  the  stimulus  of  the  Protestant  criticism,  as 
"  sorrow  of  mind,  and  a  detestation  for  sin  commit- 
ted, with  the  purpose  of  not  sinning  for  the  future." 
* '  Attrition  ' ' — the  fear  of  punishment — though  a  gift 
of  God,  is  but  an  "imperfect  contrition,"  a  prep- 
aration for  a  true  penance. 

Such  grace-giving  sacraments,  especially  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  mass,  demand  for  their  administration 
a  divinely  appointed  ministry.     Hence,    "sacrifice 


400  The  Reformation. 

and  priesthood  are,  by  the  ordinance  of  God,  in 
such  wise  conjoined,  as  that  both  have  existed  in 
every  law."  There  is  "in  the  New  Testament  a 
visible  and  external  priesthood,"  to  which  men  are 
admitted  by  the  sacrament  of  ordination.  By  this 
sacrament  "a  character  is  imprinted  which  can 
neither  be  effaced  nor  taken  away  ;"  and  in  ordina- 
tion **  neither  the  consent,  nor  vocation,  nor  author- 
ity, whether  of  the  people,  or  of  any  civil  power  or 
magistrate  whatsoever,  is  required  in  such  wise  as 
that,  without  this,  the  ordination  is  invalid."  The 
Protestant  doctrine  of  the  universal  priesthood  of 
believers  is  thus  set  aside. 

The  council  concluded  its  work  by  treating  com- 
paratively briefly  of  purgatory,  invocation  of  saints, 
veneration  of  relics  and  images,  and  indulgences. 
It  was  admitted  that  serious  abuses  had  crept  in, 
but  the  doctrines  themselves  were  maintained  in 
their  mediaeval  integrity. 

Beside  these  doctrinal  decisions,  the  council  di- 
rected a  number  of  valuable  reforms,  for  the  better 
education  and  supervision  of  the  clergy,  the  resi- 
dence of  bishops  in  their  dioceses,  and  the  provision 
of  a  zealous  and  worthy  priesthood.  These  reforms 
simply  embodied  the  spirit  which  had  long  been 
manifest  in  the  Spanish  Awakening,  the  Italian 
reform  movements  and  the  Jesuits. 

For  the  Roman  Church  the  Tridentine  creed  was 
a  great  advantage.  It  could  now  appeal  to  a  modern, 
clear  and  authoritative  presentation  of  its  faith.  It 
now  possessed  a  definite  doctrinal  test  and  a  bond 
of  doctrinal  unity.     The  real  unity  of  the  Roman 


Strength  Renewed.  401 


Church  remained,  indeed,  where  it  always  is  to  be 
found,  in  obedience  to  the  pope  ;  but  it  was  no  small 
convenience  to  be  able  to  meet  the  Protestants  with 
a  unity  of  professed  faith  embodied  in  a  compact 
creed.  Yet,  in  so  doing,  the  Roman  Church  ster- 
eotyped its  mediaeval  character. 

One  other  force  of  great  importance  contributed 
to  the  success  of  the  counter-Reformation — the  en- 
ergetic support  of  several  of  the  Catholic  sovereigns. 
In  speaking  of  the  Jesuits,  mention  has  already  been 
made  of  the  aid  given  to  Jesuit  missionaries  and 
founders  by  John  III.  of  Portugal  (ruled  1521-57). 
In  Germany  great  assistance  was  afforded  thq 
counter-Reformation  by  Albrecht  V.  of  Bavaria 
(ruled  1550-79).  Under  his  rule,  Bavaria  became  a 
Roman  stronghold,  in  the  years  which  immediately 
followed  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  from  Bavaria 
outward  efforts  to  win  back  Germany  to  the  Roman 
fold  were  constant.  Without  such  political  and  re- 
ligious support  as  Bavaria  supplied,  and  without  the 
influence  of  the  example  which  Albrecht's  suppres- 
sion of  Protestantism  and  the  revival  of  the  Roman 
Church  within  its  borders  afforded,  the  counter- 
Reformation  would  have  won  no  sruch  successes  in 
Germany  as  came  to  it  in  the  second  half  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  What  Albrecht  stood  for  in  Ger- 
many that  Philip  II.  of  Spain  represented  on  a  scale 
commensurate  with  western  Christendom.  Son  of 
Charles  V.  and  receiving  from  him  the  sovereignty 
of  Spain  (1556),  the  Netherlands,  and  of  the  Spanish 
conquests  in  Italy  and  the  New  World,  he  bent  his 
energies,  till  his  death   in    1598,  to   the   extirpation 


402  The  Reformation. 

of  Protestantism.  Never  heartily  a  friend  of  the 
Jesuits,  and  with  much  of  that  independence  of 
the  papacy  in  matters  of  administration  which  had 
marked  the  Spanish  monarchs  since  the  reign  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  he  yet  made  the  restoration 
of  Catholicism  his  first  object.  In  fixity  of  purpose, 
in  relentlessness  of  method,  he  surpassed  every  ruler 
of  his  time.  He  crippled  permanently  the  power 
and  resources  of  Spain  in  his  endeavor.  But,  while 
he  lived,  Catholicism  had  in  him  its  chief  political 
supporter,  and  Protestantism  was  not  freed  from 
peril  of  forcible  extinction  till  his  plans  had  shown 
themselves  impossible  of  accomplishment. 

So  it  came  about  that  the  Roman  Church,  at  the 
time  of  Melanchthon's  death,  presented  a  very  dif- 
ferent spectacle  from  that  exhibited  when  Luther 
had  begun  his  work.  Its  principles  were  essentially 
unchanged,  but  it  had  had  a  thorough  awakening. 
The  revival  of  piety  and  of  theology,  the  formula- 
tion of  its  doctrines,  its  missionary  zeal,  above  all 
the  enthusiasm  and  activity  of  its  new  order,  the 
Jesuits,  and  the  support  of  able  princes,  were  all 
manifestations  of  vigorous  life.  It  had  renewed  its 
strength  and  was  ready  to  contest  the  right  of  Prot- 
estantism to  exist  in  Christendom. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  MASTERY. 

Y  the  opening  of  the  seventh  decade  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  various  types 
of  the  Reformation  had  crystaHized 
into  durable  form.  No  new  doctrinal 
principles  of  importance  were  being  de- 
veloped. No  further  attempts  at  a  compromise 
which  should  unite  Catholics  and  Protestants  were 
undertaken.  The  Reformation  had  worked  out  its 
character.  The  most  conspicuous  of  its  leaders  had 
passed  away  or  had  about  run  their  course.  ZwingH 
and  Luther  had  gone  long  before.  The  year  1555 
had  seen  Germany  divided  between  Catholicism  and 
Lutheranism  by  the  Peace  of  Augsburg.  In  1556 
Ignatius  Loyola  died.  In  1558  Charles  V.  closed 
his  eventful  career,  and  the  accession  of  Elizabeth 
gave  the  upper  hand  permanently  to  Protestantism  in 
England.  The  next  year  Calvin  published  the  com- 
pleted form  of  his  Institutes,  and  Caraffa  ended  his 
long  life.  Melanchthon  passed  from  the  storms  of 
a  world  which  so  wearied  him  in  1560,  and  the  same 
year  witnessed  the  determination  of  Scotland  for 
the  Protestant  side.  In  1563  the  Council  of  Trent 
finished  a  work  a  large  part  of  which  had  been  coni- 

403 


404  The  Refor7natioii. 

pleted  ten  years  before,  and  the  year  following  Cal- 
vin ceased  from  his  Genevan  labors.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  John  Knox,  none  of  the  formative  men 
of  the  creative  period  of  the  Reformation  age  re- 
mained. As  a  movement,  the  character  of  the 
Reformation,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  was  deter- 
mined. 

But  though  the  character  of  the  Reformation  had 
thus  become  fixed,  the  question  of  the  division  of 
western  Christendom  between  its  various  types  was 
never  more  unsettled.  If  northern  Germany,  sev- 
eral of  the  great  cities  of  its  southern  portion,  a 
considerable  part  of  Switzerland,  and  the  Scandi- 
navian lands  could  be  reckoned  as  Protestant,  and 
England  and  Scotland,  though  with  much  less  cer- 
tainty, counted  as  facing  in  the  same  direction, 
Spain  and  Italy  were  evidently  Roman,  Between 
the  two  types,  as  yet  in  doubt  were  France,  on  the 
whole  decidedly  inclined  to  the  Catholic  side,  and 
the  Netherlands,  southern  Germany  and  Austria,  the 
religious  destiny  of  which  was  wholly  problematical. 
They  were  to  be  the  battle-ground  between  Cathol- 
icism and  Protestantism,  and  this  battle  was  neces- 
sarily largely  political  and  to  be  decided  by  military 
force.  For  such  a  contest  the  Roman  side,  if 
united,  possessed  great  superiority.  The  resources 
of  the  Spanish  sovereign  in  income  and  in  troops  of 
proved  valor  were  the  greatest  of  any  king  in  Eu- 
rope, and  the  ruler  of  France,  though  not  as  yet  his 
equal,  was  the  head  of  a  monarchy  more  compact 
and  resourceful  than  that  of  any  P'rotestant  prince. 
The  Protestant   states  of  Germany  were  individu- 


Christendom  Divided.  405 

ally  weak  and  indisposed  to  effective  combined  ac- 
tion. The  Scandinavian  lands  had  not  yet  counted 
much  in  the  scale  of  European  politics.  Scotland 
was  distracted  and  insignificant.  England,  though 
Protestant  in  policy  during  the  opening  years  of 
the  reign  of  its  new  sovereign,  Elizabeth,  was  still 
divided  and  uncertain  internally,  and,  if  united,  was 
supposed  to  be  no  match  for  Spain  or  even  for 
France.  It  was  evident  that  a  united  Catholicism 
could  force  Protestantism  to  a  fight  for  its  life. 

Catholicism  had  not  thus  far  been  united  politi- 
cally. That  disunion,  more  than  any  other  cause, 
had  permitted  Protestantism  to  grow.  The  rivalry 
between  France  and  the  Habsburg  monarchy  had 
prevented  the  execution  of  the  Edict  of  Worms, 
had  well-nigh  frustrated  the  general  council  which 
Charles  V.  desired,  and  had,  in  the  end,  ruined  the 
life-work  of  that  emperor  and  enabled  the  Luther- 
ans of  Germany  to  win  for  themselves  a  legal  stand- 
ing. That  rivalry,  contending  for  control  of  Italy, 
had  involved  the  popes  of  the  early  Reformation 
period  in  policies  oftentimes  of  great  advantage  to 
Protestantism,  as  when  Clement  VII.  released 
Francis  I.  from  the  treaty  of  Madrid  in  1526,  and 
thereby  renewed  the  wars  which  had  apparently 
been  brought  to  an  end  by  the  victory  of  Pavia. 
But  now,  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  decade  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  this  rivalry  seemed  about  over. 
The  Catholic  political  forces  were  uniting.  Prot- 
estantism was  to  experience  its  greatest  peril  while 
this  union  continued. 

By  successive  acts  of  abdication   in    1554,  1555, 


4o6  The  Reformatiofi. 

and  1556,  Charles  V.  transferred  to  his  son  PhiHp  II. 
the  sovereignty  of  those  portions  of  Italy  of  which 
the  Spaniards  were  masters,  of  the  Netherlands  and 
of  Spain.  The  crown  of  the  empire  Charles  V. 
could  not  add  to  these  gifts  to  his  son,  as  he  wished. 
In  1558,  it  went  to  Charles's  brother,  Ferdinand  I. 
In  many  ways,  however,  this  division  was  far  from 
being  a  loss  to  the  Spanish  monarchy.  Germany 
had  been  a  source  of  sore  perplexity  to  the  cool  and 
skilful  Charles  V.  Germany  more  than  half  Prot- 
estant would  have  proved  an  embarrassment  rather 
than  a  help  to  Charles's  fanatic  and  tyrannous  son. 
With  the  sovereignty  of  Spain,  Italy  and  the  Neth- 
erlands, Philip  II.  inherited  his  father's  protracted, 
but  unfinished,  war  with  Henry  II.  of  France — a 
war  of  which  the  main  features  thus  far  had  been 
the  gain  by  Henry  of  the  German  fortress-cities  of 
Metz,  Verdun  and  Toul  as  the  price  of  aid  to  Ger- 
man Protestants,  and  the  gallant  defence  of  Metz 
by  the  duke  of  Guise  against  Charles  V. 's  attempt 
to  regain  it.  This  war  had  been  scarcely  suspended 
by  the  truce  of  Vaucelles  in  1556  when  it  was  re- 
newed byCaraffa,  now  become  Pope  Paul  IV.,  who 
hoped,  with  French  aid,  to  drive  the  Spaniards  out 
of  Italy.  This  fiery  pontiff,  in  many  respects  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  counter-Reformation,  was 
politically  the  last  of  the  popes  to  attempt  to  give 
.  independence  to  Italy  by  playing  off  the  great 
rivals — France  and  Spain — against  each  other.  But 
in  the  renewed  war  the  advantages  came  to  Spain. 
The  duke  of  Alva  defeated  the  pope  and  maintained 
the  Spanish   grasp   on  Italy  ;  and   on   the   northern 


Spanish    Victories.  407 

frontier  of  France  a  composite  army  of  Spaniards 
and  Netherlanders,  largely  owing  to  the  skill  of  the 
Netherlandish  general  of  cavalry,  Lamoral,  Count  of 
Egmont  (1522-68),  completely  routed  the  French 
near  St.  Quentin  in  August,  1557.  Though  the 
duke  of  Guise  took  Calais  from  Spain's  English 
allies  the  next  year,  a  second  Spanish  victory  was 
won  by  Egmont  near  Gravelines  in  July,  1558. 
These  successes  failed  to  yield  the  Spaniards  what 
they  might,  owing  to  Alva's  religious  scruples  about 
pushing  matters  too  far  against  the  pope,  and 
Philip's  own  want  of  energy  and  skill  in  following 
up  the  northern  victories.  Nevertheless,  they  won 
more  than  Charles  V.  had  gained  in  all  his  long 
struggles.  No  pope  thereafter  for  two  generations 
ventured  to  question  Spanish  supremacy  in  Italy  ; 
and  the  treaty  drawn  at  Cateau-Cambresis  in  April, 
1559,  established  a  peace  between  France  and  Spain 
that  was  largely  to  unite  those  countries  for  the  sup- 
pression of  Protestantism  for  the  next  thirty  years. 
Probably  that  result  would  not  have  been  as  per- 
manent as  it  proved  had  not  Henry  II.  been  killed 
in  a  tournament  three  months  after  the  treaty  was 
signed,  and  France,  under  the  successive  rule  of  his 
weak  sons,  Francis  II.  (1559-60),  Charles  IX.  (1560- 
74),  and  Henry  III.  (1574-89),  become  the  scene  of 
bitter  civil  strife  as  to  whether  toleration  should  be 
enjoyed  by  the  French  Huguenots  or  not.  These 
things  made  it  impossible  for  France  to  resume  the 
old  struggle  for  the  political  mastery  of  Europe,  and 
bound  her  policy,  as  far  as  she  may  be  said  to  have 
had  a  policy,  fast  to  that  of  Spain. 


4o8  The  Reformation. 

Probably  the  moment  of  highest  danger  for  Prot- 
estantism in  Europe  was  in  the  few  months  after 
the  death  of  Henry  II.  PhiHp  still  had  the  support 
of  all  his  subjects.  England  had  not  yet  become 
predominantly  Protestant  in  spirit.  Scotland  was 
entering  on  the  throes  of  the  Reformation  struggle. 
Elizabeth's  title  to  the  throne  of  England,  or  to 
legitimacy  of  birth,  was  denied  by  Mary  "Queen  of 
Scots,"  wife  of  Francis  II.  of  France;  and  if  this 
denial  was  justified,  as  many  thought  it,  then  France, 
England  and  Scotland  belonged  to  a  husband  and 
wife  of  strongly  Roman  sympathies.  Had  their 
claim  then  been  supported  by  Philip  of  Spain,  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  religious  history  of 
western  Europe  would  have  been  altered.  The 
Reformation  would  have  run  a  different  course  in 
England,  Scotland  and  the  Netherlands.  But,  de- 
voted son  of  the  Roman  Church  as  Philip  was,  a 
combination  that  should  put  England,  France  and 
Scotland  under  joint  rulers  was  too  dangerous  to 
the  political  supremacy  of  Spain  to  be  welcome  ; 
and  he  therefore  really,  though  unobtrusively,  aided 
Elizabeth — thus  throwing  away,  for  good  political 
reasons,  the  best  opportunity  that  ever  came  to  him 
to  further  the  counter-Reformation.  When,  a  few 
months  later,  Mary  returned  to  Scotland  a  widow, 
and  France  passed  from  her  husband's  hands,  the 
opportunity  was  gone,  for  Scotland  had  declared 
for  the  Reformation,  France  was  entering  on  a  civil 
war,  and  premonitory  symptoms  of  restiveness  under 
Spanish  rule  could  be  perceived  in  the  Netherlands. 

The  death  of   the    fairly  forceful,  if   not  highly 


Dangers  to  Protestantism.  409 

talented,  Henry  II.  in  the  fulness  of  his  strength 
left  the  crown  of  France  to  a  feeble  boy  of  sixteen, 
Francis  II.,  and  set  three  rival  forces  into  struggle 
for  the  control  that  the  young  king  was  too  weak  to 
exercise.  Most  influential  in  the  councils  of  the  new 
sovereign  were  two  gifted  brothers,  Frangois,  duke 
of  Guise  (1519-63),  the  defender  of  Metz  and  con- 
queror of  Calais,  and  Charles  (1524-74),  eminent 
among  the  French  clergy  as  archbishop  of  Rheims, 
and  known  as  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine.  Sprung 
from  a  younger  branch  of  the  ducal  family  of  Lor- 
raine, which  had  gained  prominence  in  France 
through  the  military  services  of  their  father,  Claude 
of  Guise,  under  Francis  I.,  they  were  looked  upon 
by  many  of  the  French  nobility  as  foreigners  and 
upstarts,  as  well  as  dreaded  by  reason  of  their 
abilities.  Frangois  was  the  ablest  general  that 
France  could  show.  Charles  was  a  prelate  fully  im- 
bued with  the  ideas  of  the  counter-Reformation. 
Both  were  men  of  the  utmost  ambition  and  unscru- 
pulousness,  and  both  were  devoted  to  the  cause  of 
Catholic  restoration.  At  the  accession  of  Francis 
IL,  whose  wife,  Mary  "Queen  of  Scots,"  was  their 
niece,  these  men  practically  took  control  of  the  mili- 
tary and  civil  government  of  France  in  the  name  of 
the  young  king  ;  and  their  authority  increased  the 
persecution  of  the  Protestants. 

In  polar  religious  and  political  opposition  to  the 
Guises  were  the  Calvinists  of  France — the  Hugue- 
nots, In  spite  of  augmenting  persecution,  Prot- 
estantism of  the  Genevan  type,  Calvinistic  in 
theology  and  Presbyterian  in  government,  had  won 


4IO  The  Reformation. 

adherents  in  France,  especially  in  the  south  and 
west.  By  1555,  they  had  a  church  in  Paris  itself, 
though  Paris  was  of  all  French  cities  that,  perhaps, 
the  most  hostile  to  the  Genevan  Reformation.  In 
1559,  soon  after  the  peace  of  Cateau-Cambresis  was 
signed,  they  held  their  first  national  synod  at  Paris, 
and  adopted  a  Confession  of  Faith.  Even  a  year 
before  that  meeting,  the  Venetian  ambassador  esti- 
mated their  strength  at  four  hundred  thousand. 
Among  their  adherents,  most  of  whom  were  from 
the  middle  classes,  were  a  number  of  the  high 
nobility  of  France,  and,  conspicuously,  members 
of  two  families  of  great  distinction — those  of  Bour- 
bon and  of  Chatillon.  The  head  of  the  former 
house,  Antoine  de  Vendome,  himself  a  prince  of 
royal  blood,  was  the  husband  of  Jeanne  d'Albret, 
titular  queen  of  Navarre,  and  daughter  of  Mar- 
guerite d'Angouleme.  Though  of  weak  abilities, 
his  rank  gave  him  much  conspicuity.  Antoine's 
younger  brother,  Louis,  prince  of  Conde,  was  a 
gallant  soldier,  though  a  man  of  impulses.  Of  the 
house  of  Chatillon,  the  leader  was  Gaspard  de 
Coligny  (1517-72),  known  as  Admiral  Coligny, 
though  his  services  were  on  land  rather  than  on 
the  sea — a  man  of  sterling  character,  statesmanlike 
abilities,  intelligent  and  devoted  Calvinism,  and 
high  military  reputation,  both  as  the  reorganizer  of 
the  French  infantry  and  as  the  heroic  defender  of 
St.  Quentin.  Religious  principles  mingled  with 
political  jealousy  to  induce  these  men  to  oppose 
the  house  of  Guise  ;  and  the  Huguenots,  though  a 
mere  fraction  of  the  population  of  France,  were  so 


Parties  in  France.  6f\\ 


ably  led  as  to  count  for  much  more  than  their  weight 
in  numbers. 

Had  these  two  parties  been  all  of  importance  in 
France,  the  situation  would  have  been  simple,  and 
its  solution  probably  prompt.  But  a  third  factor 
was  to  enter  into  the  struggle,  the  influence  of  the 
queen-mother,  the  widow  of  Henry  H.,  Catherine 
de'  Medici  (1519-89).  A  grand-niece  of  Pope 
Clement  VH.,  endowed  with  all  the  skill,  capacity 
for  intrigue,  ambition  and  unscrupulousness  that 
marked  the  great  Florentine  family  from  which  she 
sprang,  she  was  without  serious  concern  as  to  the 
religious  aspects  of  the  struggle  which  was  about  to 
convulse  France,  but,  though  often  irresolute  as  to 
details  of  policy,  was  determined  to  rule  and  to  pre- 
serve unimpaired  the  powers  of  the  crown  amid  the 
contests  of  the  great  nobles.  Hence  she  made  use 
of  both  parties,  and  was  herself  loved  by  neither. 
Without  influence  under  the  reign  of  her  husband, 
who  paid  far  more  heed  to  the  counsels  of  his  mis- 
tress, Diane  de  Poitiers,  she  plotted  and  bided  her 
time. 

Calvin  had  taught  that  the  powers  that  be  are 
ordained  of  God  and  had  opposed  any  rebellion 
against  a  sovereign  ;  but  to  repel  usurpers,  such  as 
the  Guises  seemed,  was  quite  another  matter  in  the 
eyes  of  many  Calvinists.  Though  Calvin  disap- 
proved his  plan  as  designed,  a  Calvinist  gentleman 
of  Perigord,  La  Renaudie  by  name,  probably  with 
the  approval  of  Cond6,  now  conspired  with  others 
to  seize  the  king  and  the  Guises  and  transfer  the 
government  to  the  Bourbons  in  March,  1560.     The 


412  The  Reformation. 

plot,  known  as  the  "  Conspiracy  of  Amboise,"  com- 
pletely failed.  Though,  in  the  fear  which  the  peril 
inspired,  the  severer  aspects  of  the  repression  of 
Protestantism  temporarily  disappeared,  the  Guises 
speedily  recovered.  It  was  widely  believed  that 
they  were  about  to  force  the  acceptance  of  a  Catho- 
lic creed  on  all  clergymen  and  lay-officials  through- 
out France  on  pain  of  death  ;  and  they  would  have 
executed  Cond6  on  December  lo  had  not  the  sud- 
den demise  of  Francis  II.,  five  days  before,  unex- 
pectedly checked  their  measures. 

Charles  IX.,  Francis's  brother  and  successor,  was 
not  yet  eleven,  and  with  his  accession  the  controlling 
power  came  for  the  first  time  to  his  mother,  Catherine 
de'  Medici,  aided  by  a  statesman  of  broad  and  con- 
ciliatory views — Michel  de  I'Hopital  (1504-73),  who 
had  become  chancellor  of  France  in  1560.  She  now 
aimed  at  a  reconciliation  of  the  factions,  released 
Cond6  from  prison,  greatly  limited  the  power  of  the 
Guises,  and  gave  Antoine,  king  of  Navarre,  the 
head  of  the  Bourbon  house,  the  leading  place  among 
the  nobles  of  the  court.  The  Huguenots,  who  had 
been  well-nigh  in  despair,  now  rejoiced,  and  indulged 
the  most  flattering  hopes,  the  more  so  that  open 
demands  were  made  in  the  States  General  for  a 
complete  reform  of  the  civil  and  religious  constitu- 
tion of  France,  that  a  public  discussion  of  the  doc- 
trinal differences  between  Catholic  and  Protestant 
theologians  was  held  at  Poissy  in  September,  1561, 
in  which  Theodore  Beza  presented  the  Calvinistic 
faith  before  the  king  and  court,  and  that,  in  Jan- 
uary, 1562,  an  edict  was  issued  through  THopital's 


The  Huguenot   Wars.  413 

influence,  by  the  government  at  St.  Germain,  by 
which  the  Huguenots  first  gained  official  recognition, 
and  were  allowed  to  assemble  without  arms  for  wor- 
ship except  in  the  walled  towns.  It  was  believed 
that  the  Huguenot  congregations  numbered  already 
more  than  two  thousand,  and  to  the  more  sanguine 
the  conversion  of  France  to  Protestantism  seemed 
imminent. 

But  the  Catholic  party,  headed  by  the  Guises, 
looked  upon  these  acts  with  aversion.  Rather  than 
submit,  they  would  provoke  war.  An  attack  upon 
an  unarmed  Huguenot  congregation  worshipping  at 
Vassy,  by  the  body-guard  of  the  duke  of  Guise,  on 
March  i,  1562,  threw  France  into  flame  and  began 
civil  wars  of  extraordinary  ferocity.  In  sympathy 
with  the  Guises  stood  Anne  de  Montmorency,  grand- 
constable  of  France,  and  Marshal  St.  Andr6,  and 
they  won  to  their  side  the  weak  king  of  Navarre. 
The  leadership  of  the  Huguenots  devolved  on 
Cond6.  The  queen-mother  was  for  the  moment 
powerless.  The  Catholics  gained  help  from  Spain, 
the  Catholic  Swiss  cantons  and  the  pope,  the  Prot- 
estants from  England  and  Germany.  Normandy 
was  the  first  seat  of  the  war,  and  in  an  attack  on 
Rouen,  the  king  of  Navarre  received  a  wound  that 
cost  him  his  life.  On  December  19,  1562,  the  rival 
armies  met  at  Dreux,  in  an  indecisive  battle.  St. 
Andr6  was  killed,  Cond6  taken  by  the  Catholics 
and  Montmorency  by  the  Huguenots,  Great  cruel- 
ties were  perpetrated  on  both  sides.  But  on  the 
whole,  the  Catholics  were  gaining,  when,  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1563,  the  duke  of  Guise  was  murdered  by  a 


414  'I^^i^  Reformation. 

Protestant  sympathizer  as  he  was  besieging  the 
Huguenot  stronghold  of  Orleans.  He  left  his  title, 
and  a  burning  desire  to  avenge  his  death,  to  his  thir- 
teen-year-old son,  Henry — the  duke  of  Guise  of  the 
later  Huguenot  struggles.  The  successive  loss  by 
death  or  capture  of  their  four  leaders  discouraged 
the  Catholics.  Catherine  wanted  peace  with  both 
parties,  and  the  war  came  to  an  end  in  March,  1563, 
with  the  Edict  of  Amboise.  The  Huguenot  nobles 
were  allowed  freedom  in  religion,  one  place  of  public 
worship  was  allowed  the  Protestant  common  people 
of  each  governmental  district,  and  in  each  city  where 
they  then  existed  the  Calvinist  services  were  to  con- 
tinue. In  Paris,  however,  only  Catholic  worship 
should  be  tolerated.  Neither  side  was  satisfied  with 
the  result  ;  but,  considering  their  great  numerical 
inferiority,  the  scale  of  victory  may  be  said  to  have 
inclined  to  that  of  the  Huguenots.  But  Catherine 
de'  Medici,  whose  skill  in  playing  both  parties  had 
largely  brought  about  the  peace,  gained  more  from 
it  than  either. 

For  several  years  the  exhaustion  of  Catholics  and 
Protestants  and  the  skill  of  Catherine  enabled  her  to 
keep  peace.  She  resisted  the  urgency  of  Philip  H. 
and  the  personal  exhortations  of  his  able  ambas- 
sador, the  duke  of  Alva,  in  1565,  to  turn  her  forces 
to  the  suppression  of  Protestantism.  But  a  constant 
state  of  friction  continued,  and  contemporary  Span- 
ish severities  in  the  Netherlands  added  to  the  grow- 
ing tension.  The  Huguenots  beheld  with  fear  the 
renewed  influence  of  the  cardinal  of  Lorraine  at 
court — they  planned  once  more  a  secret  rising  which 


The  Huguenot   Wa^'s.  415 

should  put  them  in  control  of  the  king.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1567,  the  attempt  failed;  but  the  result 
was  a  brief  second  war,  resulting  in  a  practical  con- 
firmation, by  the  treaty  of  Longjumeau,  in  March, 
1568,  of  the  privileges  embodied  in  the  Edict  of 
Amboise  of  1563.  The  truce  was  only  temporary. 
Catherine  and  many  others  regarded  the  Hugue- 
nots as  having  been  unjustifiable  aggressors  in  the 
last  struggle ;  and  the  queen  now  dismissed  the 
moderate  I'Hopital,  joined  the  policy  of  the  car- 
dinal of  Lorraine,  forbade  Protestant  worship,  and 
ordered  Protestant  ministers  to  leave  France  within 
fifteen  days.  The  result  was  the  outbreak,  in  the 
autumn  of  1568,  of  the  third  Huguenot  war.  It 
went  badly  for  the  Protestants.  In  March,  1569, 
they  were  defeated  at  Jarnac  and  Cond6  killed. 
Coligny  now  led  the  Huguenots,  and  was  defeated 
at  Moncontour  in  the  following  October  ;  but  he 
was  a  soldier  of  great  resources,  and  in  Rochelle  the 
Huguenot  cause  had  a  fortress  of  strength.  Both 
parties  were  exhausted,  and  Queen  Catherine  was 
growing  restive  under  the  increasing  influence  in  the 
greater  politics  of  Europe  as  well  as  in  the  affairs  of 
France,  which  the  continuance  of  the  struggle  was 
giving  Philip  II.  Even  the  more  ardent  French 
Catholics  felt  that  Philip  was  acting  rather  for  his 
advantage  than  for  that  of  France.  The  result  was 
a  new  treaty — that  of  St.  Germain — in  August,  1570, 
by  which  the  Huguenots  were  assured  free  exercise 
of  worship,  except  at  Paris  and  in  the  presence  of 
the  court,  were  granted  equal  rights,  and  assigned 
possession  of  four  cities  as  a  pledge  for  its  fulfil- 


41 6  The  Reformation. 


ment.  The  Huguenots  were  thus  made  a  state 
within  the  state.  The  effect  of  this  pacification 
and  of  the  jealousies  of  Spanish  aggrandizement 
which  were  to  a  considerable  extent  its  cause 
wrought  a  great,  though  temporary,  change  in  the 
attitude  of  France.  The  thought  awoke  of  a  re- 
newal of  that  ancient  struggle  with  Spain,  relin- 
quished only  eleven  years  before,  of  conquest  at 
Spain's  expense,  which  a  successful  intervention  in 
the  disturbed  affairs  of  the  Netherlands  might  bring  ; 
and  with  that  thought  came  an  unwonted  promi- 
nence at  court  of  the  Huguenots  who  were  Spain's 
most  determined  enemies,  and  especially  of  that 
most  famous  of  living  French  soldiers,  the  Hugue- 
not chieftain.  Admiral  Coligny. 

The  contest  in  the  Netherlands,  with  which  that 
in  France  was  largely  interlocked,  though  resulting 
ultimately  in  a  great  extension  of  the  power  of 
Protestantism,  began  in  political,  quite  as  much  as 
in  religious,  disputes,  and  was  throughout  largely 
involved  in  efforts  for  political  freedom.  The 
Netherlands,  as  has  already  been  noted,  were  pre- 
eminently a  manufacturing  and  commercial  region, 
a  land  of  flourishing  towns,  of  a  population  well- 
to-do  and  well-educated  far  beyond  the  average 
of  western  Europe,  and  marked  by  that  jealousy 
for  local  rights  and  disinclination  toward  all  that 
would  make  trade  difBcult  which  a  predominantly 
mercantile  people  usually  exhibits.  As  it  came 
to  Philip,  in  1555,  from  Charles  V.,  this  old  Bur- 
gundian  inheritance,  which  marriage  had  brought 
to  the  Habsburgs  in  1477,  included  seventeen  prov- 


The  Netherlands.  4 1  7 

inces,  each  with  its  local  governmental  institutions, 
its  local  customs  and  its  peculiarities  of  population. 
Its  Catholic  religious  administration  was  equally  un- 
centralized.  The  land  was  divided  into  four  large 
bishoprics,  of  which  three  owed  spiritual  allegiance 
to  the  archbishop  of  the  French  see  of  Rheims,  and 
one  to  the  archbishop  of  Cologne — neither  of  which 
prelates  were  in  Philip's  territories.  Charles  V. ,  who 
enjoyed  high  popularity  in  the  Netherlands,  and  re- 
garded the  country  as  his  home-land,  having  been 
born  at  Ghent,  was  wise  enough,  in  such  changes  in 
the  Netherland  constitution  as  he  effected,  to  at- 
tempt no  very  serious  interference  with  the  local 
rights  of  the  provinces,  either  political  or  ecclesias- 
tical. His  greater  authority  there  enabled  him  to 
carry  out  a  persecuting  policy  toward  Protestants, 
however,  much  more  severe  than  he  could  command 
in  Germany.  Though  there  was  much  inequality 
in  the  degree  in  which  his  edicts  were  enforced  by 
his  representatives,  many  executions  occurred,  and 
the  policy  of  the  emperor  was  never  in  doubt.  But 
Protestantism  grew.  Among  the  middle  classes, 
Calvinism  displaced  the  Lutheranism  that  had  en- 
tered from  Germany  early  in  Luther's  reformatory 
career.  Anabaptism  was  widespread,  especially 
among  the  lower  classes.  By  1562,  as  remarked  in 
a  previous  chapter,  the  adherents  to  Protestantism 
were  reckoned  a  hundred  thousand. 

The  new  ruler  of  these  individual  and  peculiar  ter- 
ritories had  before  him  a  hard  task  in  any  event  ; 
but  the  fixed  principles  of  Philip's  mind  rendered 
his  peaceable  rule  impossible  as  soon  as  he  began  to 


4 1 8  The   Reforination. 

translate  them  into  action.  He  was  determined  to 
secure  political  and  religious  uniformity  similar  to 
that  which  existed  in  Spain,  where  the  king  was  the 
source  of  all  authority,  and  where  all  departures 
from  doctrinal  orthodoxy  were  suppressed.  He  had 
no  idea  that  any  other  form  of  government  was  good. 
But  to  apply  these  principles  rigidly  to  the  Nether- 
lands meant  immediate  and  general  friction.  And 
apply  them  he  did  at  once.  When  he  returned  to 
Spain,  in  1559,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  war  with 
France  by  the  peace  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  he  des- 
ignated his  sister,  Margaret  of  Parma,  an  illegitimate 
daughter  of  Charles  V.,  as  regent.  The  appoint- 
ment itself  was  not  unpopular,  since  Margaret  was 
a  Netherlander  by  birth  ;  but  Philip  placed  by  her 
side  a  co?isjilta,  or  advisory  committee  of  three,  of 
which  the  animating  spirit  was  that  of  Philip's  de- 
voted friend  and  experienced  public  servant,  An- 
toine  Perrenot  (1517-86),  bishop  of  Arras,  and  soon 
to  be  known  as  Cardinal  Granvella.  Not  merely  did 
Granvella  heartily  support  Philip's  policy,  but  his 
prominence  angered  the  high  nobles  of  the  Nether- 
lands, to  whom  he  seemed  an  upstart,  in  spite  of  the 
eminent  services  which  his  comparatively  humble- 
born  father  had  rendered  Charles  V.  The  considta, 
moreover,  in  practical  administration,  usurped  the 
power  of  the  regular  councils  of  state,  in  which  the 
high  nobles  of  the  land  shared. 

Several  acts  of  Philip,  either  directly  or  through 
this  new  government,  roused  much  hostility. 
Though  the  war  with  France  no  longer  gave  reason 
for  their  presence,  he  continued  the  Spanish  troops 


The  Netherlands.  419 

in  the  Netherlands  after  the  peace  of  Cateau- 
Cambresis,  and  was  induced  only  with  difficulty  to 
withdraw  so  menacing  a  weapon.  Even  greater 
anger  was  aroused  when,  in  1559  and  1560,  he  pro- 
cured from  Paul  IV.  and  Pius  IV.  a  total  reconstitu- 
tion  of  the  ecclesiastical  geography  of  the  Nether- 
lands, by  which,  instead  of  the  four  ancient  bishops, 
there  should  be  three  archbishops  and  fifteen  bishops 
in  the  land.  Much  was  to  be  said  in  favor  of  giving 
to  the  Netherlands  an  independent  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganization ;  but  these  wholesale  changes  seemed  a 
terrifying  increase  of  the  power  of  the  Spanish  sov- 
ereign, for  not  only  did  he  nominate  the  new  prelates, 
but  their  participation  in  the  States  General  greatly 
diminished  the  weight  of  the  old  Netherland  nobil- 
ity in  the  councils  of  state  and  augmented  clerical 
influence  in  a  land  without  sympathy  for  Spanish 
clericalism.  A  third  cause  for  dislike  was  found  in 
Philip's  insistence  on  a  rigid  enforcement  of  the 
edicts  against  ''  heresy  " — the  king  using  his  utmost 
endeavor  to  strengthen  every  instrumentality  for 
the  suppression  of  Protestantism.  Though  the 
higher  classes  had,  as  yet,  little  sympathy  with  a 
revolt  from  Rome,  the  Netherlandish  people  were 
naturally  averse  to  persecution,  the  Inquisition  was 
hurting  trade  and  driving  artisans  to  England,  The 
numerous  cruel  executions  were  viewed  with  in- 
creasing popular  abhorrence. 

Chief  of  the  opposition  to  these  measures,  though 
with  no  thought  of  rebellion  against  Philip,  were 
three  members  of  the  "State  Council,"  who  were 
justly  reckoned  the  most  eminent  of  the  Netherland 


420  TJic  Reformation. 

nobles.  First  in  rank  and  fame  was  William  of 
Nassau  (1533-84),  prince  of  Orange,  a  protege  of 
Charles  V.,  born  a  Lutheran,  but  now  nominally  at 
least  a  Catholic,  as  yet  apparently  simply  a  splendor- 
loving  noble  of  considerable  talents,  but  to  develop, 
in  the  stress  of  struggle,  into  one  of  the  firmest,  most 
resourceful  and  courageous  of  a  century  of  great 
men.  Far  less  significant  in  retrospect  but  almost 
as  eminent  at  the  time  were  the  count  of  Egmont, 
already  spoken  of  as  the  victor  at  St.  Quentin  and 
Gravelines,  and  the  count  of  Horn,  admiral  of  the 
Netherlands.  These  men  from  the  first  showed 
themselves  opponents  of  Granvella,  earnestly  de- 
sirous to  maintain  the  influence  of  Netherland  nobles 
in  the  councils  of  state,  and  to  moderate  the  edicts 
against  Protestantism — though  none  of  them  were 
now  Protestants.  To  Philip  it  came  gradually  to 
seem  that  they  were  the  chief  hindrances  to  the  ex- 
ecution of  his  plans.  They  led  other  nobles  in  a 
union  which  forced  the  reluctant  king  to  dispense 
with  Granvella's  services  in  1564.  But  their  rejoic- 
ing over  this  success  was  short-lived  ;  for  though 
Philip  withdrew  his  counsellor,  he  did  not  change 
his  policy,  but  rather  intensified  its  obnoxious  re- 
ligious aspects  before  the  close  of  the  year  just  men- 
tioned by  demanding  the  acceptance  and  enforce- 
ment of  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  This 
signified  more  searching  persecution  at  a  time  when 
the  growth  of  Protestantism  was  showing  increas- 
ingly the  ill-success  of  the  policy  ;  and,  therefore, 
early  in  1565,  the  impetuous,  but  injudicious, 
Egmont  was  sent  to  Madrid  to  enlighten  Philip  as 


The  Netherlands.  421 

to  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  Netherlands,  and,  if 
possible,  induce  a  change  of  policy.  Egmont  was 
deceived  by  the  cordiality  of  the  king's  reception  ; 
but  Philip's  determination  was  in  no  way  altered. 
In  spite  of  growing  popular  discontent,  he  directed, 
in  1565,  a  strict  enforcement  of  the  laws  against 
"heresy,"  and  energetic  support  of  the  Inquisition. 
This  unyielding  attitude  led  to  the  circulation  of 
a  petition  known  as  the  "  Compromise,"  requesting 
a  modification  of  the  edicts  and  protesting  against 
the  Inquisition,  by  Philip  Marnix  of  Ste.  Alde- 
gonde,  Henry,  count  of  Brederode,  and  Louis  of 
Nassau,  younger  brother  of  William  of  Orange, 
which  received  some  two  thousand  signatures  of 
Protestants  and  Catholics  alike,  though  the  highest 
of  the  nobles  did  not  care  to  commit  themselves  by 
so  positive  a  step.  On  April  5,  1566,  this  petition 
was  formally  presented  to  the  regent — the  nick- 
name "  Beggars,"  given  to  them  on  this  occasion, 
became  thenceforth  the  name  of  the  party  of  Nether- 
landish freedom.  This  act  but  increased  the  pop- 
ular excitement.  Calvinistic  preaching  now  was 
heard  openly  in  many  places.  The  Protestant 
movement  showed  its  real  strength.  The  organiza- 
tion of  a  Calvinistic  national  church  was  sketched. 
And  in  August,  1566,  a  tremendous  series  of  icono- 
clastic riots,  vigorously  opposed  by  such  men  as 
William  of  Orange,  wrecked  the  windows,  images 
and  pictures  in  hundreds  of  Netherland  churches. 
The  people  were  aroused,  at  last,  no  less  than  the 
nobles.  In  the  terror  of  the  moment,  the  regent 
granted  a  measure  of  freedom  of  worship. 


42  2  The  Reformation. 

To  Philip  this  seemed  flat  rebellion  to  be  met  only 
by  prompt  severity,  especially  toward  the  high 
nobles,  whom  he  deemed  the  authors  of  the  dis- 
turbances. But  he  moved  cautiously.  Almost  all 
the  Netherland  leaders,  save  William  of  Orange, 
were  deceived  as  to  his  intentions  ;  but  no  one  could 
be  blind  to  their  meaning,  when,  in  August,  1567, 
the  duke  of  Alva  (1508-82),  reputed  one  of  the  ablest 
of  Spanish  generals,  arrived  at  Brussels  with  a  picked 
Spanish  army  and  instructions  that  placed  the 
government  practically  in  his  hands.  Egmont  and 
Horn  were  treacherously  seized.  Orange  escaped 
his  power.  A  ferocious  court — the  "Council  of 
Troubles" — was  established,  and  immediate  execu- 
tions followed.  The  Inquisition  was  intensified. 
Meanwhile  William  of  Orange,  safe  in  Germany, 
was  raising  money  and  troops,  and  in  May,  1568, 
his  brother,  Louis  of  Nassau,  began  a  war  by  de- 
feating a  Spanish  detachment  at  Heiliger  Lee.  Alva 
replied  by  the  execution  of  Egmont  and  Horn,  and 
even  more  effectively  by  a  campaign  of  much  bril- 
liancy in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  that  year,  in 
which  he  routed  Louis  of  Nassau  and  exhausted  the 
resources  of  William  of  Orange.  Alva  was  now  at 
the  height  of  his  power.  Executions  were  constant, 
hundreds  fled  the  land.  But  a  further  step,  in  1569, 
aroused  opposition  from  many  whom  his  previous 
acts  of  tyranny  had  not  affected.  He  determined 
to  introduce  a  system  of  taxation  with  which  he  was 
familiar  in  Spain.  One  per  cent,  was  levied  on  all 
property,  five  per  cent,  on  transfers  of  real  estate, 
and  ten  per  cent,  on  sales  of  merchandise.     What- 


The  Netherlands.  423 


ever  such  taxes  might  seem  in  non-commercial 
Spain,  to  the  people  of  the  Netherlands  they  ap- 
peared commercial  ruin.  Alva  had  now  alienated 
all  classes  ;  and  so  strong  was  the  opposition  that  he 
delayed  the  enforcement  of  the  tax  for  two  years. 
Meanwhile  William  of  Orange,  unable  to  do  much 
for  the  Netherlands,  gave  such  aid  as  he  could  to 
the  Huguenots  of  France  in  the  struggle  of  1569-70, 
and  commissioned  sea-rovers,  in  conduct  little  better 
than  pirates,  who  found  precarious  protection  in 
Enghsh  harbors  and  preyed  on   Spanish  commerce. 

In  April,  1572,  a  company  of  these  sea-rovers  un- 
expectedly captured  Brill.  The  northern  provinces 
rose.  William  of  Orange  put  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  movement.  Louis  of  Nassau  captured  the 
strong  southern  fortress  of  Mons.  On  July  18,  Hol- 
land, Zealand,  Friesland  and  Utrecht  recognized 
William  as  their  stadtholder.  It  was  in  reality,  though 
not  in  form,  or  even  yet  in  intention,  a  declaration 
of  independence.  The  prince  and  people  expected 
the  immediate  aid  of  France,  where  Charles  IX., 
under  the  guidance  of  Coligny,  seemed  about  to 
renew  the  ancient  quarrel  with  Spain.  Had  France 
so  done  at  this  time,  the  freedom  of  most  of  the 
Netherlands  from  Spanish  tyranny  would  have  been 
quickly  secured,  though  their  southern  portion  would 
have  been  annexed  by  France. 

But  an  event  of  horrifying  atrocity  now  suddenly 
altered  the  policy  of  France  and  beclouded  the 
bright  prospects  of  the  Netherlands  revolt.  To 
cement  the  reconciliation  of  the  French  religious 
factions,  a  marriage  was  agreed  upon,  in  spite  of 


424  The  Reformatioji. 

the  opposition  of  the  pope,  between  Marguerite  of 
Valois,  sister  of  King  Charles  IX.,  and  Henry  of 
Navarre,  the  young  head  of  the  house  of  Bourbon, 
the  Protestant  son  of  that  Antoine,  king  of  Navarre, 
who  had  lost  his  life  in  1562.  For  this  wedding,  the 
chiefs  of  the  Huguenot  party  and  many  Catho- 
lic nobles  of  France  assembled  in  the  fanatically 
Catholic  city  of  Paris  in  August,  1572.  The  Guise 
faction  and  the  Spanish  interest  naturally  looked 
with  alarm  upon  the  altered  policy  of  France. 
Henry,  the  young  duke  of  Guise  (1550-88),  viewed 
Coligny  with  special  hatred  as  supposedly  responsi- 
ble for  the  death  of  his  father,  and,  more  important 
yet,  Catherine  de'  Medici  began  to  fear  lest  Coligny 
should  usurp  the  influence  which  she  had  thus  far 
exercised  over  her  royal  son.  On  August  22,  an 
attempt  was  made  to  assassinate  Coligny.  It  failed ; 
and  the  queen-mother  received  renewed  proof  of  the 
value  placed  by  Charles  IX.  on  the  Huguenot  ad- 
miral. In  a  panic  of  fear  for  her  own  authority,  she 
resolved  on  a  step  which  she  seems  for  some  time 
previous  to  have  regarded  as  possibly  an  ultimate 
weapon,  but  for  which  she  had  till  now  made  no 
definite  plan — she  would  rid  herself  of  Coligny,  and 
of  the  Huguenots  who  would  be  likely  to  avenge 
him,  by  a  general  massacre.  For  this  scheme,  the 
hatred  of  the  Guises  and  the  fanatic  population  of 
Paris  furnished  abundant  tools.  Charles  IX., whose 
nature  was  weak  rather  than  deliberately  cruel,  was 
won  to  the  plan  by  representations  that  the  Hugue- 
nots were  plotting  to  avenge  in  some  way  upon  him 
the  attack  already  made  on  Coligny.     Preparations 


S^.  Bartholo77iew.  425 

were  quickly  finished  ;  and,  on  August  24,  St. 
Bartholomew's  Day,  the  storm  broke.  Admiral 
Coligny  and  many  of  the  foremost  Huguenots  of 
France  were  killed,  with  hundreds  of  their  follow- 
ers, as  if  they  had  been  wild  beasts,  and  these  scenes 
of  slaughter  were  widely  repeated  in  the  smaller 
cities  of  France.  Estimates  of  the  number  of  vic- 
tims vary  greatly  ;  but  a  total  sacrifice  of  five  thou- 
sand in  Paris  and  of  four  or  five  times  as  many  in  the 
whole  of  France  is  not  improbable. 

The  news  of  this  bloody  deed  was  hailed  with  re- 
joicing at  Rome  and  at  Madrid  ;  and  with  good  rea- 
son, if  blind  religious  passion  could  overlook  its 
moral  enormity,  for  it  had  freed  the  Catholic  cause 
from  a  great  peril.  The  policy  of  France,  as  planned 
by  Coligny,  was  instantly  reversed.  The  outlook 
for  the  success  of  the  party  of  freedom  in  the  Neth- 
erlands was  rendered  almost  desperate.  The  sacri- 
fices, dangers  and  ravages  through  which  that  un- 
happy land  had  to  pass  till  the  defeat  of  the  Armada, 
in  1588,  were  the  fruit  of  this  massacre.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  those  who  rejoiced  over  it,  it 
seemed  at  first  a  most  successful  stroke. 

Yet  it  did  not  bring  to  its  authors  or  applauders, 
in  reality,  the  lasting  advantages  that  they  hoped. 
Catholic  sentiment  in  France  was  divided  by  the 
very  horror  of  the  deed.  Though  the  Huguenots 
were  crippled  by  the  deaths  of  their  older  leaders 
and  the  enforced  conformity  to  the  court  religion  of 
Henry  of  Navarre  and  the  younger  Cond6,  they 
were  not  broken.  They  came  out  of  a  new  war — 
the  fourth  of  the  long  series — in  1573,  with  their 


426  The  Reformation. 

privileges  only  slightly  abridged,  and  with  high 
military  repute  gained  from  their  heroic  defence  of 
Rochelle.  The  death  of  Charles  IX.,  in  1574,  was 
followed  by  the  accession  of  his  brother,  Henry  III. 
— a  man  of  thoroughly  evil  character,  wholly  under 
the  dominance  of  Catherine,  and  conspicuous  in 
furthering  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  The 
fifth  Huguenot  war  broke  out  soon  after  his  reign 
began,  and  it  was  at  once  evident  that  the  Catholic 
party  was  divided.  Its  extremer  members  found  a 
natural  leader  in  Henry  of  Guise,  while  the  moder- 
ate portion,  or  "  Politiques,"  held  some  understand- 
ing with  the  Huguenots  to  be  necessary.  The  war 
dragged  on.  German  troops  were  obtained  by  the 
Huguenots.  In  1576,  Henry  of  Navarre  escaped 
from  the  court  and  declared  himself  once  more  a 
Protestant  ;  and  so  hard  pressed  were  Catherine  and 
Henry  III.  that  they  accorded  to  the  Huguenots 
the  most  favorable  terms  yet  granted  them,  in  the 
year  last  mentioned. 

This  result,  and  the  evident  impotency  of  the 
monarchy  to  crush  Protestantism,  now  induced  the 
strict  Catholics  to  form  associations  in  various  parts 
of  France  to  maintain  the  Roman  Church  even  at 
the  expense  of  resistance  to  the  king.  Out  of  these 
there  developed  the  "  League,"  having  the  support 
of  Spain  and  the  pope,  and  finding  its  recognized 
leader  in  Henry  of  Guise,  who  soon  began  to  dream 
of  becoming  ultimately  king  of  France.  France 
was  more  than  ever  distracted.  But  the  Huguenots 
held  their  own  fairly  well  in  the  sixth  (1577)  and 
seventh  (1580)  wars,  and  gained  again  definite  con- 


The  Huguenot  Wars.  427 

cessions  of  freedom  of  worship  in  certain  places,  and 
a  definite  proportion  of  the  judges  of  the  higher 
courts  of  southern  France,  where  the  Huguenots 
were  most  strongly  represented.  After  the  close  of 
this  war,  France  had  a  brief  respite  from  religious 
strife,  till  the  death  of  Henry  HI.'s  younger 
brother,  Francois  of  Anjou  and  Alengon,  in  1584, 
made  it  evident  that  with  Henry's  demise  the  house 
of  Valois  would  come  to  an  end.  Whenever  that 
event  should  occur,  Henry  of  Navarre,  now  a  Prot- 
estant, was  the  natural  successor  ;  and  to  avoid  so 
unpalatable  an  accession  as  that  of  a  Protestant  to 
the  throne  of  France,  not  only  Guise  and  the  League, 
but  Spain  and  the  pope,  were  to  put  forth  their  ut- 
most endeavors. 

Never  had  William  of  Orange's  hopes  for  the 
freedom  of  the  Netherlands  been  higher  than  when 
they  where  suddenly  dashed  by  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew  in  1572.  The  two  years  that  followed 
were  the  period  of  intensest  struggle  in  the  war. 
Alva's  military  abilities  were  undeniable.  The  re- 
capture of  Mons  in  September,  1572,  rendered  the 
Spaniards  once  more  masters  of  the  southern  Neth- 
erlands. Mechlin,  which  had  refused  a  Spanish 
garrison,  was  sacked  as  an  example.  Alva's  son, 
Federico,  successfully  invaded  the  north,  capturing 
Zutphen  and  Naarden  before  the  close  of  the  year, 
and  Haarlem  in  July,  1573.  All  were  treated  with 
the  barbarity  characteristic  of  the  age.  But  he 
found  a  limit  to  his  advance  at  Alkmaar,  which  he 
failed  to  take  in  the  following  October.  Alva  was 
now  recalled  to  Spain,  at  his  own  request  ;  and  was 


428,  The  Reformation. 

succeeded,  in  November,  by  Luis  de  Requesens 
(1525-76),  a  man  of  more  political  skill  and  greater 
moderation  than  Alva,  though  the  Spanish  policy 
was  almost  unchanged  under  his  rule.  A  force  led 
by  Louis  of  Nassau  was  defeated  and  their  com- 
mander killed  at  Mookerheyde  in  April,  1574;  but 
in  October  the  Spaniards  were  compelled  to  raise  a 
second  unsuccessful  siege  of  Leyden,  which  was  de- 
fended with  heroic  constancy,  and  it  was  evident 
that  the  northern  Netherlands  could  not  be  held  by 
the  forces  of  Philip  IL  Of  all  this  heroic  defence, 
William  of  Orange  was  the  animating  spirit.  Thus 
far  the  southern  provinces,  which  were  predomi- 
nantly Catholic,  had  been  kept  in  hand  by  the  Span- 
iards, while  in  the  north  Calvinism  made  rapid 
strides,  and  was  now  professed  by  William  himself. 
But  shortly  after  the  death  of  Requesens — an  event 
which  occurred  in  March,  1576 — the  ill-paid  Spanish 
troops  mutinied  and  sacked  Antwerp  with  savage 
cruelty.  The  reaction  of  feeling  caused  by  this 
barbarous  outbreak  united  north  and  south,  for  the 
time  being,  in  opposition  to  Spain.  By  the  Pacifi- 
cation of  Ghent,  in  November,  1576,  the  provinces 
confederated  to  drive  out  the  Spaniards,  and  Prot- 
estantism was  recognized  as  established  in  Holland 
and  Zealand,  though  no  anti-Catholic  propaganda 
was  to  be  permitted.  Such  was  the  state  of  affairs 
when  the  new  Spanish  commander,  John  of  Austria 
(1547-78),  arrived.  An  illegitimate  son  of  Charles 
v.,  brought  up  with  almost  royal  honors  in  Spain, 
and  famous  as  the  victor  over  the  Turkish  fleet  at 
Lepanto,  he  was  too  full  of  plans  for  his  own  ad- 


The  Netherlands.  429 

vancement  to  pursue  the  vigorous  policy  of  his  two 
predecessors,  had  he  so  desired.  He  hoped  to  make 
the  Netherlands  a  stepping-stone  toward  England, 
where  he  might  perchance  marry  the  imprisoned 
Mary  "  Queen  of  Scots,"  and  secure  the  English 
throne  for  her  and  for  himself. 

But,  though  inefKcient,  John  of  Austria  intro- 
duced a  new  policy  in  the  treatment  of  the  dis- 
tracted Netherlands.  By  fomenting  the  jealousies 
between  the  Walloon  and  Catholic  south  and  the 
Teutonic  and  Protestantly-incHned  north,  he  did 
something  to  build  up  a  Spanish  party  ;  yet  Philip 
II.  only  partially  supported  him,  and  he  died,  having 
practically  failed,  in  October,  1578.  What  John  at- 
tempted to  do  was,  however,  successfully  accom- 
plished by  his  nephew  and  successor,  Alexander  of 
Parma,  who  was  to  represent  Spanish  interests  with 
signal  skill  till  his  death  in  1592.  A  general  of 
great  abilities,  his  talents  as  a  statesman  were  almost 
equally  marked  ;  and  he  set  himself  to  save  what 
he  could  for  Spain.  In  this  work  he  divided  the 
Netherlands  permanently  into  two  sections,  largely 
along  racial  lines.  Between  1581  and  1585,  he  mas- 
tered Ghent,  Brussels  and  Antwerp.  Thousands 
of  Protestants  emigrated  from  the  southern  prov- 
inces to  the  northern.  Before  he  died,  the  ten 
southern  provinces  had  been  won  for  Catholicism 
and  kept  for  Spain.  Philip  II. 's  Netherlandish 
monument  is  Belgium.  But  the  seven  northern 
provinces  were  lost  to  Spain  forever.  On  January 
23,  1579,  five  of  them  formed  the  Union  of  Utrecht. 
Their  plan  did   not  even  yet  reach  to  a  formal  crea- 


430  The  Reformation. 


tion  of  a  new  nation.  In  July,  1581,  allegiance  to 
Philip  II.  was  at  last  renounced.  But  though  much 
of  political  negotiation  remained  to  be  done  before 
these  provinces  became  the  United  Netherlands,  a 
new,  vigorous  Protestant  nation,  Calvinist  in  its 
state-religion,  but  tolerant  beyond  any  existing 
country  of  Europe,  had  been  born.  Holland  was 
the  last  conspicuous  victory  of  Protestantism  in  the 
division  of  Europe  which  the  Reformation  effected. 
And  so  well  had  the  work  been  done  that  when  its 
chief  architect,  William  of  Orange,  fell,  on  July  10, 
1584,  by  the  bullet  of  an  assassin  incited  by  fanat- 
icism quite  as  much  as  by  the  rewards  offered  by 
Philip  II.,  the  structure  was  not  overthrown  by  the 
shock. 

Just  a  month  before  the  murder  of  William  of 
Orange  the  death  of  Henry  III. 's  younger  brother 
and  expected  successor,  Frangois,  had  renewed  the 
difficulties  of  France.  The  Protestant  Henry  of 
Navarre  was  now  heir  to  the  throne,  yet  the  League, 
headed  by  Henry  of  Guise,  and  supported  by  Spain 
and  the  pope,  desired  to  have  Henry  of  Navarre's 
Catholic  uncle.  Cardinal  Charles  Bourbon,  recog- 
nized as  heir  in  his  stead.  It  also  demanded  the 
restoration  of  many  rights  and  privileges  of  the 
clergy  and  nobility  which  the  monarchy  had  cur- 
tailed. By  1585,  the  League  was  powerful  enough 
to  compel  Henry  III.  to  terms.  In  July,  1585, 
Protestant  worship  was  forbidden  throughout 
France,  and  certain  cities  were  given  as  security  into 
the  hands  of  the  leaders  of  the  League,  in  the  same 
way  that  other  cities  had  formerly  been  given  to  the 


The  Huguenot    Wars.  431 

Huguenots.  The  king  was  really  in  the  power  of 
the  League.  In  September,  Pope  Sixtus  V.  de- 
clared Henry  of  Navarre  and  the  younger  Conde 
excommunicate  and  incapable  of  occupying  a 
throne.  The  consequence  of  these  events  was  a 
new  Huguenot  war — that  of  the  ''three  Henrys." 
Of  all  the  parties,  that  of  Henry  HI.  and  Catherine 
de'  Medici  was  the  most  contemptible.  The  League 
grew  in  strength  and  popularity.  Paris  warmly 
supported  it.  In  1587,  Henry  of  Navarre  defeated 
the  Catholics,  but  his  German  allies  were  beaten  a 
little  later  by  Henry  of  Guise,  and  would  have  been 
much  more  severely  discomfited  had  not  Henry 
III.,  jealous  of  the  League,  permitted  them  to  leave 
France  on  easy  terms.  This  act  filled  the  cup  of 
the  king's  unpopularity.  On  May  12,  1588 — the 
"  Day  of  the  Barricades  ' ' — the  Parisians  rose  in  favor 
of  Henry  of  Guise  and  compelled  Henry  III.  to  flee 
the  city.  The  duke  of  Guise  was  evidently  more 
powerful  than  the  king.  But  events  marched 
rapidly  to  a  tragic  climax.  Conscious  of  his  weak- 
ness, and  ready  to  stoop  to  any  means  to  rid  him- 
self of  his  enemy,  Henry  III.,  on  December  23, 
1588,  had  Henry  of  Guise  murdered  in  cold  blood. 
A  fortnight  later  the  artful,  conscienceless  Cath- 
erine de'  Medici  died  a  natural  death. 

On  the  assassination  of  Henry  of  Guise,  Henry 
III.  had  cried  :  "  At  last  I  am  king  ;"  but  the  event 
in  reality  cost  him,  for  a  time,  about  all  his  remain- 
ing influence.  Paris  and  many  other  cities  of 
France  rebelled  in  the  interest  of  the  League,  and 
recognized    Charles    of   Guise,    duke    of    Mayenne, 


43  2  The   Reforinatio7i. 

younger  brother  of  the  murdered  leader,  as  their 
head.  In  his  perplexity,  Henry  III.  now  joined 
the  forces  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  they  unitedly 
laid  siege  to  Paris.  A  considerable  number  of  nobles 
now  rallied  to  the  aid  of  Henry  III.,  and  a  victory 
over  the  League  seemed  within  the  grasp  of  the  two 
Henrys  so  strangely  joined,  when,  on  August  2, 
1589,  Henry  III.  was  assassinated  by  a  fanatic  monk 
who  looked  upon  him  as  a  traitor  to  the  Roman 
cause.     So  ended  in  blood  the  house  of  Valois. 

But  while  these  momentous  events  had  been  en- 
acted in  France,  a  tragedy  of  yet  larger  significance 
had  run  its  course  in  the  destruction  of  the  Great  Ar- 
mada. Philip  II.  had  long  recognized  that  England 
was  the  main  obstacle  in  the  path  of  Spanish  suc- 
cess in  the  Netherlands  and  Catholic  triumph  in 
France.  English  harbors  gave  refuge  to  the  Neth- 
erland  patriots,  even  while  England  was  professedly 
at  peace  with  Spain.  English  men  and  money  aided 
the  Huguenots.  Elizabeth,  tortuous  in  policy  by 
nature,  and  forced  to  keep  the  balance  between 
rival  factions  at  home,  tried  the  souls  of  the  conti- 
nental Protestants  by  her  fickle  support.  But  Eng- 
land did  support  them,  and  that  support  was  inval- 
uable. Little  by  little  Elizabeth  took  a  more  positive 
position,  and  from  1578  onward,  she  openly  aided 
the  Netherlands  with  money  and  men,  while  Drake, 
even  before,  made  attacks  on  Spanish  settlements 
which  amounted  to  actual,  if  not  nominal,  war  with 
Spain. 

But  though  Philip  II.,  the  pope  and  the  League 
long  recognized  that  the  Catholic  reaction  on  the 


England.  433 

Continent    could    not  be  successful  while  England 
remained    a  Protestant   refuge  and  help,   they  had 
strong  hopes  that  England  might  come  once  more 
under  the  Roman  obedience  without  the  difBcult  task 
of  its  previous  military  conquest.     The  Catholics  in 
England    were    still  numerous.      Mary    "Queen  of 
Scots,"  the  heir  to  the  throne,  was  an  ardent  cham- 
pion of  Rome.     Should  Elizabeth  die,  they  believed 
the  policy  of  England  might  be  reversed.    Hence  the 
efforts  of  the  counter-Reformation  were  long  directed 
toward  strengthening  the  Catholic  party  in  England 
and  devising  measures  to  put  Mary  on  the  throne. 
To  this  end,  in  1 570,  Pope  Pius  V.  declared  Elizabeth 
deposed  and  excommunicate.     With  this  object  in 
view,   William  Allen  (1532-94),  the  ablest  English 
Catholic,  established,  in   1568,  a  college  at  Douai, 
which  soon  sent  ''seminary  priests"  in  numbers  to 
kindle  political  and  religious  resistance  to  Elizabeth 
in  England  itself.     On  lines  similar  to  those  char- 
acteristic of   this  Douai  mission  institution,  Allen 
reformed   the  Collegium  Anglicanum  at  Rome,  and 
brought  the  Jesuits  into  England  from  1580  onward. 
Their  zeal  for  Catholicism  was  martyr-like  ;  but  their 
political  intrigues  and  plots  led  to  that  feeling,  still 
largely  hereditary   in   the  Anglo-Saxon    race,   that 
Roman  aggressions  imply  something  unpatriotic  and 
underhanded.     Elizabeth's  government    met  them 
with  an   elaborate  spy  system,  and  with  severe  and 
often  cruel  executions — no  less  than  a  hundred  and 
twenty-three  priests  and  Jesuits  being  put  to  death 
during  her  reign.      Much  of  this  severity  was  due  to 
fear  engendered  by  a  third  method  by  which  some, 


434  ^-^^^  Reformation. 

at  least,  of  the  champions  of  the  counter-Reforma- 
tion sought  its  advance  in  England — that  of  plots 
involving  Elizabeth's  assassination.  How  real  the 
danger  from  such  plots  in  that  age  was,  the  death  of 
William  of  Orange  and  the  fate  of  the  heads  of  the 
various  parties  in  France  illustrate. 

Elizabeth's  strength  and  the  source  of  failure  of 
all  these  efforts  of  the  counter-Reformation  were 
little  understood  abroad.  It  lay  in  the  powerful 
sense  of  nationality  characteristic  of  England — a 
feeling  of  England  for  Englishmen  that  was  strong 
enough  to  bind  English  Protestants  and  Catholics 
together  in  resistance  to  foreign  aggression,  and 
made  both  parties  Englishmen  first.  But  the  vanity 
of  their  expectations  was  not  clear  to  the  continental 
Catholics  till  the  execution  of  Mary  "Queen  of 
Scots,"  February  8,  1587,  removed  the  central  ob- 
ject of  intrigue  and  the  hope  of  a  Catholic  succes- 
sion to  the  throne  of  Elizabeth.  Encouraged  by 
financial  aid  from  Pope  Sixtus  V.,  and  by  the  rep- 
resentations of  Allen,  whom  the  pope  now  made  a 
cardinal,  Philip  II.  now  fitted  out  a  great  fleet  to 
conquer  England  for  the  Roman  obedience,  to  pre- 
vent further  English  aid  to  the  Netherlands,  and  to 
enable  the  Guises  to  determine  the  French  succes- 
sion in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  League. 
Had  the  plan  succeeded,  Protestantism  would  have 
disappeared  as  a  political  force  in  western  Europe, 
and  its  suppression  as  a  religious  party  would  prob- 
ably have  resulted.  In  Spain  the  expedition  was 
looked  upon  as  a  crusade,  and  the  flower  of  the 
Spanish  army  and  navy  embarked  on  the  one  hun- 


The  Great  Armada.  435 

dred  and  thirty-two  vessels  which  were  assembled  at 
Lisbon  in  the  spring  of  1588.  Beside  the  soldiers 
carried  in  the  fleet,  the  plan  proposed  the  transfer 
of  Alexander  of  Parma  and  his  veterans  from  the 
Netherlands  to  English  soil.  The  main  work  of 
the  Spanish  fleet  was  to  be  to  protect  this  transfer. 
Sailing  from  Spain,  the  "Great  Armada  "  was  met  in 
the  Channel,  late  in  July,  by  the  smaller,  but  better 
handled,  English  vessels,  and  without  being  de- 
feated in  a  pitched  battle,  was  thrown  into  con- 
fusion, its  conjunction  with  the  forces  of  Alexander 
of  Parma  frustrated,  and  its  course  so  harassed  and 
impeded  that  its  commander  determined  to  sail  back 
to  Spain  around  the  Orkneys  rather  than  to  risk  a 
return  through  the  Channel.  In  this  attempt  storms 
wrought  enormous  destruction,  and  of  the  proud 
armament  not  more  than  fifty-three  crippled  ves- 
sels reached  Spain  in  October.  The  great  deliv- 
erance had  been  wrought  for  England  by  the  united 
patriotic  efforts  of  Englishmen,  Catholic  as  well  as 
Protestant.  Philip's  hope  of  a  Catholic  rising  proved 
utterly  futile.  But  even  more  than  the  work  of  men 
the  winds  and  waves  wrought  for  England  to  the 
frustration  of  the  Spanish  anticipations.  With  the 
destruction  of  the  Armada,  the  life-work  of  Philip  II. 
was  shattered,  and  the  counter-Reformation  in  west- 
ern Europe  was  checked  as  a  political  force.  Eng- 
land was  the  rock  on  which  the  threatening  Catholic 
reaction  made  shipwreck. 

But  though  the  loss  of  the  Armada,  in  1588,  is 
seen  in  retrospect  to  have  been  fatal  to  the  larger 
aspects  of  the  policy  of  Philip  II.,  his  influence  in 


436  The  Reformation. 

France  was  never  greater  than  in  the  years  follow- 
ing that  naval  disaster.  The  murder  of  Henry  III., 
in  August,  1589,  revived  the  drooping  prospects 
of  the  League,  for  France  now  would  have,  were 
Henry  of  Navarre  to  succeed  as  Henry  IV.  to  his 
hereditary  rights,  what  the  League  most  dreaded 
and  the  pope  had  declared  inadmissible — a  Huguenot 
king.  While  many  of  the  supporters  of  Henry  III., 
including  a  large  proportion  of  the  nobles,  rallied 
round  Henry  IV.,  Mayenne  proclaimed  Cardinal 
Bourbon  as  Charles  X.,  and  as  the  chief  of  the 
League,  with  the  strong  support  of  Paris,  and  sub- 
sidies from  Spain,  determined  to  resist  all  Henry's 
attempts  to  gain  the  kingdom  of  which  he  was  the 
natural  sovereign.  In  the  struggle  that  followed, 
Henry  IV.  was  greatly  aided  by  his  personal  quali- 
ties. *'  The  most  French  of  French  kings,"  he  has 
well  been  styled.  A  dashing  soldier,  of  undaunted 
personal  courage,  affable,  genial,  eloquent,  witty, 
quick  at  repartee,  sincerely  interested  in  the  welfare 
of  his  country,  pleasure-loving,  and  of  easy  morality, 
his  virtues  readily  won  friends, while  his  faults  were 
lightly  condoned.  He  had  to  conquer  the  kingdom 
before  he  could  possess  it,  and  the  task  was  arduous. 
A  brilliant  victory  at  Ivry,  in  March,  1590,  enabled 
him  to  lay  siege  to  Paris,  and  the  city  was  about  to 
surrender  when  Alexander  of  Parma  and  an  excel- 
lently equipped  Spanish  army  came  to  the  aid  of  the 
imperilled  League,  and  Henry  IV.  had  to  abandon 
the  attack.  Sunilar  assistance  rendered  to  the 
League  by  that  able  Spanish  general  early  in  1592 
prevented  the   capture  of  Rouen  when  almost  in 


The  Edict  of  Nantes.  437 


Henry's  grasp.  But  Alexander  died  before  the  year 
was  out,  and  the  League  was  divided  by  intrigues  on 
the  part  of  Mayenne  to  secure  the  crown  for  himself, 
and  of  Philip  II.  to  obtain  it  for  his  daughter. 
Finally,  in  1593,  Henry  IV.  accepted  the  Roman 
faith.  However  unjustifiable  at  the  bar  of  con- 
science, since  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it 
was  due  to  religious  conviction,  this  act  was  a  shrewd 
political  move.  The  opposition  gradually  melted 
away,  though  the  pope  did  not  recognize  him  till 
1595,  and  some  months  more  elapsed  before  May- 
enne made  his  peace. 

With  the  establishment  of  Henry  IV.  came  a  set- 
tlement of  the  religious  questions  of  France.  Uni- 
versal toleration  was  impossible  of  attainment  ;  but 
by  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  in  April,  1598,  the  Hugue- 
nots were  granted  freedom  of  worship  wherever  they 
had  conducted  it  in  1597,  though  it  was  forbidden 
in  Paris,  Rheims,  Toulouse,  Dijon  and  Lyons.  All 
offices  of  state  were  now  opened  to  them,  and  they 
were  allowed  to  maintain  garrisons  in  their  chief 
cities  and  fortresses.  The  Edict  still  left  the  Hu- 
guenots a  state  within  a  state.  This  favorable  posi- 
tion, the  most  flourishing  age  of  French  Protestant- 
ism, lasted  till  the  loss  of  these  corporate  political 
privileges  by  the  fall  of  Rochelle  in  1628  ;  but  the 
religious  toleration  continued,  though  with  increas- 
ing limitations,  till  the  revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes  by  Louis  XIV.,  in  1685,  drove  from 
France  a  large  portion  of  its  Protestant  population 
to  the  lasting  advantage  of  England,  Holland,  Prus- 
sia and  America,  and  reduced  those  who  remained 
to  the  condition  of  a  hunted  martyr-Church, 


438  The  Reformation. 

Henry  IV. 's  chief  work  for  France  was  the  recov- 
ery of  her  internal  prosperity,  almost  ruined  by  the 
long  religious  wars.  In  this  he  was  eminently  suc- 
cessful. In  external  policy  he  reversed  the  attitude 
of  France  since  1559,  and  returned  to  the  earlier 
ideals  of  the  nation.  Politically  he  marked  out  the 
path  which  Richelieu  and  Louis  XIV.  were  suc- 
cessfully to  pursue.  He  would  make  France,  not 
Spain,  the  leading  power  in  Europe,  and  to  that  end 
he  would  ally  himself  with  all  the  enemies  of  Spain 
and  of  the  Austrian  house,  regardless  of  their  re- 
ligious attitude.  In  a  word,  political  aggrandize- 
ment, not  religious  propagandism,  became  the  for- 
eign— though  not  the  domestic — policy  of  France. 
It  was  at  the  moment  that  he  was  about  to  attack 
the  Austrian  forces  in  the  German  duchy  of  Juliers 
and  the  Spaniards  in  Italy  that  he  was  murdered, 
May  14,  1610,  by  a  fanatic,  Francois  Ravaillac. 
Had  he  lived  the  story  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in 
Germany  might  have  been  very  different  from  what 
it  was  to  be. 

The  year  that  witnessed  the  Edict  of  Nantes  be- 
held the  death  of  Philip  II.  (September  13,  1598). 
He  had  formed  great  plans  for  the  counter-Reforma- 
tion. He  had  spent  men  and  treasure  indefatigably 
for  more  than  forty  years  to  crush  Protestantism. 
He  had  undoubtedly  limited  its  advance  and  driven 
it  from  regions  where  it  had  entered  when  his  reign 
began.  But  he  had  none  the  less  failed,  for  he  had 
aimed  at  the  overthrow  of  Protestantism  altogether. 
Instead,  he  was  compelled  to  witness  the  successful 
revolt  of  the  northern  portion   of  the  Netherlands, 


Failure  of  Philip  II.  439 

and  the  defiance  of  Spain  by  Protestant  England. 
If  the  victory  in  France  was,  on  the  whole,  on  the 
Catholic  side,  he  had  yet  to  see  there  not  merely 
toleration  granted  to  Protestantism,  but  a  reversion 
to  the  old  policy  of  hostility  toward  the  Habsburg 
house  which,  more  than  any  other  cause,  paralyzed 
the  counter-Reformation  in  its  political  efforts  to  re- 
press Protestantism. 

While  the  lines  in  western  Europe  between  the 
two  great  wings  into  which  Christendom  had  divided 
were  thus  substantially  determined  by  the  close  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  Germany  was  yet  to  pass 
through  a  furnace  of  war  before  the  religious  bounds 
were  there  decided.  The  Peace  established  at  Augs- 
burg in  1555  was  but  a  makeshift  compromise. 
Within  a  generation  it  had  ceased,  in  several  im- 
portant particulars,  to  meet  the  actual  conditions  of 
Germany.  It  gave  no  legal  standing  for  Calvinists, 
who  ever  since  Elector  Friedrich  III.  of  the  Palat- 
inate had  signalized  his  adhesion  to  the  Genevan 
doctrine  by  the  publication  of  the  Heidelberg  Cate- 
chism, in  1563,  had  been  winning  territories  in  west- 
ern Germany,  where  the  conflict  with  Catholicism 
was  most  immediate.  It  also  left  the  status  of 
many  of  the  ecclesiastically-owned  or  ruled  terri- 
tories of  Germany  open  to  grave  doubt.  As  strictly 
interpreted — and  the  Catholics  so  interpreted  it — 
the  Peace  sanctioned  only  such  confiscations  of 
monastic  and  other  churchly  property  as  had  already 
taken  place  by  1552.  The  Peace  expressly  pro- 
vided that  when  a  German  prelate  accepted  Prot- 
estantism he  should  resign  his  ofifice  and  territories. 


440  The  Reformation. 

But  the  Protestants  interpreted  this  as  no  barrier  to 
the  election  of  a  Protestant  to  such  a  post,  if  the 
chapter  chose,  and  his  retention  of  the  post  if 
already  a  Protestant  when  elected.  Under  the 
reigns  of  the  emperors  Ferdinand  I.  (1558-64) 
and  of  his  son,  Maximilian  II.  (1564-76),  both 
men  of  tolerant  and  conciliatory  views,  many  ec- 
clesiastical properties,  especially  in  northern  and 
eastern  Germany,  were  confiscated — their  popula- 
tion having  become  Protestant — and  a  number  of 
important  north  German  bishoprics  came  into 
the  hands  of  Protestant  "administrators."  This 
transfer  was  made  easy  at  the  time  by  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  Protestants  and  the  dis- 
heartenment  of  their  opponents.  But  in  no  land  did 
the  counter-Reformation,  and  its  fore-guard,  the 
Jesuits,  work  more  effectively  than  in  Germany. 
With  Rudolph  II.  's  accession  to  the  imperial  throne, 
which  he  was  long  to  occupy  (1576-1612),  the  tem- 
poral headship  of  Germany  and  the  immediate  sov- 
ereignty of  the  Austrian  lands  came  into  the  posses- 
sion of  a  devoted  Catholic  who  had  imbibed  the 
ideas  of  the  court  of  Philip  II.,  where  he  had  been 
educated.  In  Bavaria,  from  1564  onward,  a  strenu- 
ous Catholic  restoration  was  in  progress  under 
Albrecht  V.  Meanwhile  the  Protestants  were 
greatly  crippled  by  the  doctrinal  discussions  of 
Lutheran  theologians,  of  which  some  account  has 
already  been  given,  and  even  more  by  the  hostility 
between  Lutherans  and  Calvinists,  so  that  Protestant 
unity  was  fast  becoming  impossible. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  growing  confidence 


Catholic  Gains  in  Germany.         441 


of  the  Catholics  expressed  itself  in  an  increasing  in- 
sistence on  the  strict  letter  of  the  Peace  of  Augs- 
burg—and more.  The  abbot  of  Fulda,  the  bishops 
of  Bamberg,  Salzburg,  Munster  and  Paderborn,  and 
other  rulers,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  took  measures  to 
root  Protestantism  out  of  their  territories.  Three 
especially  conspicuous  defeats  came  to  the  Prot- 
estant cause.  In  1582,  the  Catholics  denied  to  the 
Protestant  administrator  of  the  archbishopric  of 
Magdeburg  a  right  to  sit  in  the  Reichstag ;  and, 
though  he  protested,  he  did  not  make  good  his 
claim.  Even  more  significant,  as  illustrative  alike  of 
Catholic  advance  and  of  Protestant  division,  was  an 
event  of  the  same  year.  Gebhard  Truchsess,  arch- 
bishop of  Cologne,  and  one  of  the  seven  electors, 
married  and  declared  his  intention  to  maintain  his 
position  as  a  Protestant.  This  step,  which  had  the 
approval  of  a  large  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  his 
territory,  was  clearly  in  contravention  of  the  Peace 
of  Augsburg.  But  its  success  would  have  given  the 
Protestants  a  majority  in  the  college  of  electors  and 
secured  an  important  territory,  already  largely 
Evangelical  and  lying  between  Protestant  northern 
Germany  and  the  Protestant  Netherlands,  perma- 
nently for  their  cause.  But  Truchsess  was  aided 
by  Calvinists.  The  Lutherans,  therefore,  would  not 
help  him  ;  and  the  Catholic  forces  were  at  once  upon 
him.  He  was  driven  forth,  and  his  territory  made 
a  Catholic  land.  The  years  1606  and  1607  saw  a 
yet  more  damaging  blow.  In  Donauworth,  an  im- 
perial free  city,  a  Catholic  procession  was  stoned  by 
the  people,  who  were  almost  entirely   Protestant. 


442  The  Reformation. 

The  emperor's  council  declared  the  town  under  the 
ban,  and  designated  Duke  Maximilian  of  Bavaria  to 
enforce  it.  The  city  was  seized  and  Catholic  wor- 
ship forcibly  established. 

This  final  step  seemed  likely  to  bring  matters  to 
a  crisis.  On  May  14,  1608,  a  number  of  south  Ger- 
man princes,  headed  by  the  Calvinist,  Elector  Fried- 
rich  IV.  of  the  Palatinate,  and  including  the  rulers 
of  Wiirtemberg,  Neuburg,  Culmbach  and  Anspach, 
formed  a  "  Union  "  for  action  in  defence  of  Prot- 
estantism. On  July  10,  1609,  Maximilian  of  Bava- 
ria and  a  number  of  the  spiritual  princes  entered 
into  a  "League"  for  Catholic  protection.  Its 
name  recalls  that  of  the  Catholic  association  of 
France.  The  strong  Lutheran  states  of  northern 
Germany  were  not  willing  to  join  the  "Union," 
nor  were  the  emperor  and  Austria  in  the  "  League." 
The  emperor,  Rudolph  II.,  was  in  feeble  health, 
and  Austria  was  yet  a  largely  Protestant  land. 
Maximilian  was  ambitious  for  Bavarian  advance- 
ment. Lutheran  Saxony  opposed  the  movement. 
It  was  at  this  point  that  Henry  IV.  of  France  was 
proposing  to  make  the  dispute  over  the  succes- 
sion to  Juliers  the  occasion  of  a  great  attack  on 
Austria  and  Spain,  when  he  was  murdered.  His 
death  threw  France  into  confusion  till  Richelieu 
became  its  master;  and  the  "Union"  and 
"  League  "  faced  each  other  without  coming  to 
blows  for  some  years  longer. 

Four  conspicuous  forces,  represented  by  four  men, 
now  existed  or  speedily  developed  in  Germany.  The 
leading  influence  in    the   "Union,"  as  well  as  its 


Parties  in  Germany.  443 

creator,  was  Christian  of  Anhalt,  the  chief  adviser 
of  the  elector  Palatine.  A  man  of  great  diplomatic 
ability,  he  trusted  to  negotiation  rather  than  to 
arms,  and  made  no  adequate  preparations  for  a 
struggle,  the  seriousness  of  which  he  underesti- 
mated. Very  different  was  Maximilian,  ruler  of 
Bavaria  from  1598  to  1651,  a  man  of  strong  Catholic 
feeling,  yet  a  cool,  cautious,  efficient  administrator, 
whose  army  was  the  best  drilled,  and  whose  treasury 
was  the  best  filled  in  Germany.  In  him  the 
"League"  had  a  capable  head.  Chief  among  the 
Lutherans  of  the  north  was  Johann  Georg,  elector 
of  Saxony  from  161 1  to  1656 — a  man  without  capac- 
ities of  leadership  or  statesmanlike  insight,  sus- 
picious of  all  union  with  Calvinists,  and  anxious  to 
preserve  peace  for  his  own  territories  at  whatever 
cost.  A  fourth  was  Ferdinand  of  Styria  ( 1 578-1637), 
a  man  of  intense  Catholic  feeling,  though  of  limited 
abilities,  educated  by  the  Jesuits  at  Ingolstadt,  who 
had  vigorously  devoted  himself  to  the  extirpation 
of  Protestantism  from  his  hereditary  territories,  and, 
as  Ferdinand  IL,  was  to  succeed  on  the  imperial 
throne,  in  1619,  the  feeble  Matthias,  who  had  held 
that  eminent  post  since  the  death  of  his  brother, 
Rudolph  IL,  in  1612.  To  some  extent,  all  these 
forces  were  mutually  antagonistic.  But  the  Prot- 
estant factions  stood  much  further  apart  than  the 
Catholic.  Could  the  Protestants  have  united,  their 
force  would  have  been  decidedly  the  superior. 

The  spark  that  kindled  the  conflagration  came 
from  Bohemia.  That  land,  the  population  of  which, 
like  that  of  Austria,  was  then  largely  Protestant,  had[ 


444  T^^^  Reformation. 

obtained  from  Rudolph  II.,  who  was  its  king  as  well 
as  the  emperor,  in  1609,  in  the  Majestdtsbrief,  the 
amplest  toleration  then  existent  anywhere  in  cen- 
tral Europe.  The  question  whether  the  Bohemian 
throne  was  elective  or  hereditary  was  one  in  dispute  ; 
but,  in  1617,  Ferdinand  of  Styria  succeeded  in  in- 
ducing the  Bohemian  Diet  to  recognize.his  claim  to 
heirship,  and  it  was  evident  that  Bohemia  would 
come  under  the  rule  of  a  determined  supporter  of 
the  counter-Reformation.  The  Protestants  soon  felt 
the  disadvantages  of  the  situation.  In  May,  161 8, 
a  party  of  disaffected  nobles  flung  the  two  Catholic 
regents  from  a  high  window  at  Prague — the  victims 
marvellously  escaping  with  their  lives.  Bohemia 
was  now  in  rebellion,  and  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
had  begun.  But  the  preparations  of  the  Bohemians 
were  inadequate.  Though  they  raised  an  army,  the 
nobles  and  towns  were  unwilling  to  pay  taxes.  Sax- 
ony would  do  nothing  for  them,  and  the  first  real 
help  was  a  little  body  of  troops  sent  them  by  a  per- 
sistent enemy  of  the  Habsburgs,  Charles  Emmanuel, 
duke  of  Savoy,  under  the  command  of  an  able  sol- 
dier, Ernst  of  Mansfeld  (1580- 1626).  In  the  early 
summer  of  1619,  a  Bohemian  force  almost  captured 
Vienna,  and  was  checked  only  by  the  personal  firm- 
ness of  Ferdinand,  who,  in  August  following,  was 
chosen  emperor.  The  Bohemians  now  felt  on  the 
high  tide  of  success,  and  the  same  week  that  Ferdi- 
nand received  the  imperial  election  they  chose  the 
Calvinist,  Elector  Friedrich  V.  of  the  Palatinate,  as 
their  king.  On  the  advice  of  Christian  of  Anhalt, 
Friedrich  accepted  the  election.     Had  the  Luther- 


The   Thirty    Years    War.  445 


ans,  especially  Saxony,  now  supported  him,  Bo- 
hemia and  Austria  would  probably  be  Protestant 
lands  to-day.  But  not  merely  was  Friedrich  a  Cal- 
vinist,  his  assumption  of  the  Bohemian  throne 
seemed  the  aggrandizement  of  one  noble  of  the  em- 
pire at  the  expense  of  another,  and,  if  successful, 
would  have  given  him  two  votes  in  the  college  of 
electors.  Johann  Georg  of  Saxony  agreed  to  be 
neutral.  Even  the  "Union"  did  not  support  the 
new  Bohemian  king.  But  while  Friedrich  was  thus 
left  to  fight  his  battle  almost  alone,  Maximilian  of 
Bavaria  and  a  Spanish  force  from  the  Netherlands 
came  to  the  aid  of  Ferdinand.  The  army  of  the 
"League,"  under  the  capable  Walloon  general, 
Jan  Tzerklas,  Baron  Tilly  (i 559-1632),  utterly  de- 
feated the  Bohemian  forces,  led  by  Christian  of 
Anhalt,  near  Prague,  on  November  8,  1620.  Mean- 
while Spanish  troops  threatened  the  Palatinate. 
Friedrich  fled  for  his  life,  his  leading  Bohemian 
supporters  were  executed,  the  Majestdtsbricf  can- 
celled, the  Jesuits  given  a  large  share  of  the  con- 
fiscated property,  and  the  counter-Reformation 
vigorously  established  in  Moravia  and  Austria,  as 
well  as  Bohemia,  with  the  result  that  those  lands 
soon  became  almost  wholly  Catholic.  The  ' '  Union 
was  dissolved. 

Friedrich  did  not  wholly  abandon  his  claim  to 
Bohemia,  and  Maximilian  wanted  compensation  for 
the  services  rendered  Ferdinand  II.;  the  year  1621, 
therefore,  saw  the  war  carried  into  the  Palatinate. 
Though  Friedrich  obtained  some  assistance  from  his 
neighbors,  the  forces  that  rallied  to  his  aid  made 


446  The   Reformation. 

themselves  hated  by  their  indiscriminate  plunder- 
ing, and  before  1622  had  passed,  Tilly  and  the  Span- 
iards, working  together,  had  practically  conquered 
the  whole  of  Friedrich's  original  territories.  In 
February,  1623,  Friedrich's  electoral  dignity  was 
transferred  as  a  reward  to  Maximilian  of  Bavaria, 
thus  giving  the  Catholics  a  clear  majority  in  the 
college  of  electors.  Catholicism  was  introduced 
with  a  high  hand  into  the  Palatinate. 

The  war  might  possibly  have  ended  with  this  great 
loss  to  Protestantism  had  not  Friedrich's  former 
generals,  Ernst  of  Mansfeld  and  Christian  of  Bruns- 
wick, carried  on  the  struggle  with  an  army  of  prac- 
tically irresponsible  freebooters.  Invited  to  serve 
Holland  for  a  few  months,  they  defeated  the  Span- 
iards at  Fleurus  in  August,  1622  ;  but  were  dis- 
missed from  Dutch  service  in  November,  and  set- 
tled, supporting  themselves  by  plundering,  in  East 
Friesland.  This  brought  the  war  into  north  Ger- 
many, for  Tilly  followed,  and  a  year  after  Fleurus 
defeated  Christian  of  Brunswick  at  Stadtlohn,  near 
the  Dutch  frontier.  This  enlargement  of  the  seat 
of  war  put  the  princes  of  northwestern  Germany  in 
fear  lest  they,  'too,  should  become  objects  of  Cath- 
olic attack,  and  should  lose  the  bishoprics  now  in 
Protestant  hands.  They  began  to  look  outside  of 
Germany  for  allies.  Yet  efificient  supporters  were 
hard  to  find,  though  the  successes  of  Ferdinand  II. 
and  of  the  Catholic  "  League  "  had  awakened  much 
hostile  feeling  outside  of  Germany.  James  I.  of 
England  was  the  father-in-law  of  the  deposed 
Friedrich.      France,   crippled  by   internal   commo- 


The  Thirty    Years    War,  447 


tions  during  the  minority  of  Louis  XIII.,    son   of 
the   murdered    Henry  IV.,    came,    in    1624,    under 
the  control  of  the  masterful  Armand   du    Plessis, 
Cardinal  Richelieu  (i 585-1642),  Louis's  prime  min- 
ister.    In  foreign  politics,   Richelieu  was  the  heir 
of  the  policy  of  Henry  IV. — to  reduce  the  power 
of  Spain  and  of  the  Habsburgs  in  Germany.     To 
Christian  IV.  of  Denmark,  the  questions  agitating 
the  German  bishoprics  were  of  personal  concern  by 
reason  of  the  possession  of  Verden  by  one  of  his 
sons,  and  he  desired,  also,  to  strengthen  the  hold  of 
Denmark  on  the  German  North  Sea  coast  so  as  to 
control  the  mouths  of  the  Elbe  and  Weser  rivers. 
And  to  a  man  of  far  greater  force  than  Christian  IV., 
Gustavus  Adolphus  (i  594-1632),  king  of  Sweden, 
the  German   situation  was  disquieting.     Since  his 
accession,  in    161 1,    his   policy  had   been    directed 
toward  rendering  the  Baltic   a  Swedish  lake.     To 
that  end  he  had  warred   successfully  with  Russia 
and  Poland,  and  was  ready  to  seek  the  acquisition 
of   the  German  coast   of   the  Baltic  ;    but,    deeper 
than  these  desires  to  magnify  Swedish  influence, 
he   had   a   consciousness   of    a   mission   to   defend 
Protestantism  that  was  to   raise  him  to  the  most 
heroic  figure  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
'    But  though  there  were  many  thus  who  were  dis- 
turbed by  the  rising  power  of  the  emperor  and  the 
"  League  "  in  Germany,  an  effective  union  was  dififi- 
cult.     Richelieu,  though  checking  the  Spaniards  in 
Italy,  was  busied  with  the  reduction  of  the  semi-in- 
dependent Huguenot  cities  at  home  till  1629.     Gus- 
tavus, who  saw  clearly  the  magnitude  of  an  attempt 


448  The  Reforination. 

to  readjust  the  disturbed  balance  in  Germany,  held 
that  fifty  thousand  men  must  be  provided,  their  pay 
and  equipment  assured,  and  the  whole  command 
put  into  his  hands.  To  these  things  the  other  dis- 
affected powers  were  unwilling  to  agree.  France 
and  Sweden  were  therefore  unable  to  interfere  in 
Germany  at  this  point,  though  both  were  later  to 
do  so  with  great  effect.  The  only  combination  that 
could  be  brought  about  was  an  agreement  by  which 
Christian  IV.  of  Denmark,  with  the  pecuniary  help 
of  England  and  Holland,  was  to  put  an  army  of 
invasion  in  the  field.  Christian  could  count  on 
support  from  the  section  of  northwestern  Germany 
known  as  the  "  Lower  Saxon  Circle,"  which  chose 
him  general,  but  the  great  Protestant  electors  of 
northern  Germany  still  remained  neutral.  German 
Protestantism  was  still  hopelessly  divided. 

Though  Protestantism  was  divided,  Ferdinand  II. 
was  doubtful  of  his  ability  to  meet  this  new  antag- 
onist. His  money  was  exhausted,  and  Bethlen 
Gabor,  the  ambitious  Protestant  ruler  of  Transyl- 
vania, with  the  countenance  of  the  Turks,  was 
threatening  Ferdinand's  feeble  hold  on  Hungary. 
At  this  juncture,  in  1625,  however,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  military  adventurers  in  history  proposed 
to  Ferdinand  that  he  be  allowed  to  raise  and  sup- 
port an  army  without  cost  to  the  emperor — an  army 
not  to  be  maintained,  like  that  of  Mansfeld,  on  indis- 
criminate plunder,  but  by  forced  taxes  levied  on  the 
governments  of  the  regions  where  it  might  operate. 
Albrecht  of  Waldstein,  or  Wallenstein  (i  583-1634), 
was  of  Protestant  Bohemian  parentage  and   noble 


The   Thirty    Years     War.  449 

birth.  Left  early  an  orphan,  he  accepted  Cathol- 
icism and  came  under  Jesuit  influence,  though  he 
seems  to  have  had  no  personal  religion,  unless  a 
belief  in  astrology  can  be  so  termed.  A  man  of 
boundless  ambition,  self-confidence  and  energy,  his 
rise  had  been  rapid.  Asa  soldier  of  ability,  idolized 
by  his  men,  he  won  distinction  under  Ferdinand 
when  that  emperor  was  simply  ruler  of  Styria,  and 
he  rendered  conspicuous  service  to  the  imperial 
cause  in  the  campaign  against  Friedrich's  brief 
kingship.  On  the  conquest  of  Bohemia,  he  man- 
aged, in  ways  more  or  less  scrupulous,  by  gift  and 
by  purchase  of  confiscated  estates,  to  become  the 
wealthiest  landowner  in  that  kingdom.  By  1623  he 
received  the  title  of  prince  of  Friedland  from  Fer- 
dinand, and  was  in  possession  of  an  enormous  for- 
tune. Ferdinand  could  not  refuse  the  offer  of  such 
assistance.  He  had  been  compelled  thus  far  to  de- 
pend principally  on  the  army  of  Bavaria  and  the 
' '  League, ' '  of  which  Bavaria  was  the  head.  This  new 
force  would  be  his  own.  Thus  encouraged,  Wallen- 
stein  quickly  got  together  an  army  of  adventurers. 
He  raised  no  questions  of  religion  or  birth.  His 
only  tests  were  military  ability  and  devotion  to  him- 
self ;  and  the  weapon  that  he  forged  was  speedily  a 
mighty  instrument  for  aggression  and  oppression. 

The  campaign  that  followed  was  brief  and  deci- 
sive. English  subsidies  almost  wholly  failed  Chris- 
tian IV.,  owing  to  controversies  in  which  Charles 
L  became  involved  with  Parliament.  Christian's 
forces,  though  nearly  equal  in  number  to  those 
of   his  opponents,   were    inferior  in    training.     On 


450  The  Reformation. 


April  25,  1626,  Wallenstein  severely  defeated  the 
Protestant  army  which,  under  Ernst  of  Mansfeld, 
attempted  to  carry  Wallenstein's  fortified  position 
at  the  Dessau  bridge  over  the  Elbe.  Mansfeld  re- 
tired from  central  North  Germany  to  Hungary,  to 
join  his  remaining  forces  with  those  of  Bethlen 
Gabon  On  August  27,  thearmy  of  the  "  League," 
under  Tilly,  routed  that  of  Christian  IV.  at  Lutter 
in  Brunswick.  Wallenstein  followed  Mansfeld  to 
Hungary,  and  without  severe  battle  compelled  Beth- 
len Gabor  to  a  truce  and  Mansfeld  to  leave  the  land 
an  exile.  In  November,  Mansfeld  died.  Possessed 
thus  of  Hanover  and  Brunswick,  the  Catholics  fol- 
lowed up  these  successes  in  1627,  Wallenstein  con- 
quered Silesia.  He  then  marched  directly  against 
the  Danish  king,  and,  by  the  beginning  of  1628,  had 
Holstein,  Schleswig  and  Jutland  almost  wholly  in 
his  hands.  It  looked  as  if  all  Denmark  would  be 
conquered.  Early  in  1628,  he  overran  Mecklen- 
burg, and  soon  forced  the  submission  of  Pomerania. 
Mecklenburg  was  given  him  as  a  reward  for  his 
services.  But  though  Wallenstein  easily  secured 
the  lands  adjacent  to  the  Baltic,  it  was  quite  an- 
other matter  to  gain  possession  of  the  Baltic  sea- 
ports ;  yet  they  must  be  held,  if  Swedish  inter- 
ference was  to  be  rendered  impossible.  In  this 
attempt,  Wallenstein  encountered  his  first  check. 
Though  several  of  the  Baltic  seaports  readily 
yielded,  Stralsund  heroically  resisted,  aided  by 
Swedish  and  Danish  supplies  and  by  the  dif^culty 
experienced  by  Wallenstein  in  obtaining  an  ef^cient 
fleet.     After  ten  weeks  of  siege,  Wallenstein  was 


The   Thirty    Years     Wai\  451 

compelled  to  abandon  the  attack.  It  was  plain  that 
there  were  limits  even  to  his  power,  and  the  fact 
was  made  more  evident  by  the  failure  of  Tilly  and 
Wallenstein,  in  January,  1629,  to  take  Gluckstadtat 
the  mouth  of  the  Elbe.  Wallenstein  saw  that  peace 
was  desirable  with  Denmark  before  Sweden,  whose 
king  these  attacks  had  greatly  stirred,  should  send 
an  army  to  the  aid  of  Christian  IV.,  and  on  May 
22,  1629,  agreement  was  reached.  Christian  kept 
his  territories,  but  renounced  all  right  in  German 
bishoprics  and  pledged  himself  not  to  interfere  in 
German  politics. 

Never  since  the  day  when  Charles  V.  defeated 
the  Protestants  at  Miihlberg,  in  1547,  had  an  em- 
peror seemed  to  possess  such  power  as  Ferdinand 
II.  now  enjoyed  ;  and  even  before  the  treaty  with 
Denmark  he  employed  it  to  the  full  to  enact  into 
a  legal  constitution  the  Catholic  interpretation  of  the 
Peace  of  Augsburg.  By  an  Edict  of  Restitution, 
in  March,  1629,  it  was  ordered  that  ecclesiastical 
property  acquired  by  Protestants  since  1552  should 
be  surrendered,  and  no  toleration  accorded  except  to 
Lutherans.  Western  Germany  had  become  largely 
Calvinist ;  but  the  loss  to  the  Lutheran  lands  would 
be  hardly  less,  for  the  Edict  gave  to  the  Catholics 
the  two  great  northern  archbishoprics  of  Magde- 
burg and  Bremen,  twelve  bishoprics,  and  some  one 
hundred  and  twenty  other  ecclesiastical  properties, 
in  almost,  if  not  quite  all  of  which,  the  population 
was  Protestant.  Furthermore,  the  restitution  would 
plant  a  series  of  Catholic  centres  of  aggression 
and  political  intrigue  in  the  heart  of  the  now  solidly 


452  The  Reformat io?i. 

Protestant  sections  of  northern  Germany.  The 
restitution  might  be  justifiable  by  the  strict  letter  of 
the  ancient  Peace,  but  it  was  a  flagrant  aggression 
judged  by  the  actual  conditions  then  existent  in 
Germany.  Even  the  neutral  Lutheran  states  of 
northern  Germany  could  now  see  their  peril. 

The  very  magnitude  of  Ferdinand's  success  was, 
however,  a  powerful  incentive  to  foreign  resistance 
and  domestic  disagreement,  since  there  seemed  to 
be  no  limits  to  his  ambition  to  extend  the  Habsburg 
might.  In  1629,  he  designed  to  aid  the  Spaniards 
in  the  Netherlands  ;  he  sent  troops  to  the  assistance 
of  the  king  of  Poland  in  a  war  between  that  mon- 
arch and  Gustavus  Adolphus  ;  and  he  aided  the 
Spaniards  in  Italy  to  lay  claim  to  Mantua,  held  by 
the  French  duke  of  Nevers.  For  1630,  he  planned 
an  even  more  extensive  interference  in  Italian  af- 
fairs and  talked  of  sending  Wallenstein  thither. 
Venice,  and  even  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  called  on 
Richelieu  for  aid.  The  Catholic  princes  of  Ger- 
many were  becoming  alarmed  at  the  growing  power 
of  the  emperor  and  incensed  over  the  plundering  and 
pretensions  of  Wallenstein.  The  counter-Reforma- 
tion party  was  beginning  to  be  a  house  divided 
against  itself.  And  Richelieu  now  skilfully  fomented 
these  jealousies.  In  1629,  he  invaded  Italy,  though 
rather  unsuccessfully,  with  a  French  force  to  oppose 
the  Spanish  and  imperial  plans  ;  he  effected  a  truce 
between  Sweden  and  Poland  by  which  Gustavus 
Adolphus  was  freed  to  interfere  in  Germany  ;  and 
he  intrigued  with  Maximilian  of  Bavaria  and  the 
other  Catholic  princes  who  compelled  Ferdinand  II. 


The   Thirty    Years     War.  453 


to  dismiss  Wallenstein  from  his  generalship  in  the 
summer  of  1630. 

It  was  almost  at  the  moment  when  jealousy  of 
his  pretensions  and  anger  at  his  exactions  had  in- 
duced the  leaders  of  the  "  League  "  to  force  the  re- 
moval of  Wallenstein,  that  Gustavus  Adolphus,  with 
a  picked  Swedish  army,  landed  on  the  Pomeranian 
coast.     He  had  come  without  alliance    even  with 
France,  but  his  troops,  though  not  numerous,  were 
the  best  drilled  and  the  most   orderly,  and  he  him- 
self   the  ablest    commander,   in   Europe.     For  six 
months  after  his  landing  in  July,    1630,  Gustavus 
labored  to  secure  the  Pomeranian  coast  lands.     In 
January,  1631,  Richelieu  and  Gustavus  entered  into 
a  treaty  by  which  France  promised  substantial  pe- 
cuniary assistance  to  the  Swedish  army.     But  the 
strong   north-German    Protestant   states,  Branden- 
burg and  Saxony,  still  preserved  their  almost  fatal 
neutrality,  and  Gustavus  could  do  little  save  check- 
mate the  movements  of  the  imperial  army,  under 
Tilly.     He  could  not  prevent  the  capture  of  Mag- 
deburg by  Tilly's  veterans,   in  May,    1631,  and  its 
sack  and  destruction  under  circumstances  of  pecu- 
liar  atrocity.     Perhaps  even    under   these  circum- 
stances. Saxony  would   have    continued    its   armed 
neutrality  had  not  Ferdinand  now  ordered  Tilly  to 
compel  Johann  Georg  to  disarm  or  to  oppose  Gus- 
tavus in  the  field.     This  was  too  much.     Tilly  at- 
tacked Saxony  ;  the  moment  had  come  for  which 
Gustavus  wished.     Brandenburg  and  Saxony  were 
now  in  alliance  with  him ;  and  less  than   a  month 
later,  September  17,  1631,  the  most  important  bat- 


454  '^^^^  Reformation. 

tie  of  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  was 
fought  at  Breitenfeld,  close  by  Leipzig.  Though 
the  raw  Saxon  troops  fled,  the  army  of  Tilly,  hith- 
erto victorious,  was  beaten  by  half  its  numbers  be- 
fore the  discipline  of  the  Swedes  and  the  skill  of 
their  king.  The  effect  of  the  victory  was  revolu- 
tionary. All  the  structure  of  Catholic  restoration 
which  the  forces  of  Wallenstein  and  Tilly  had  built 
up  in  north  Germany  fell  at  once  and  forever.  The 
Swedish  king  by  a  single  battle  had  saved  Protes- 
tantism from  its  worst  danger  in  the  lands  which 
had  been  its  original  home.  And  the  results  of  the 
victory  were  the  greater  as  Gustavus  swept  slowly 
with  his  army  in  a  long  curve  to  south  Germany, 
marching  through  the  territories  lately  conquered 
by  the  Catholics  in  the  Rhineland,  welcomed  by  the 
Protestant  cities  of  the  South,  till  in  April,  1632, 
near  Donauworth,  which  he  had  just  freed,  he  de- 
feated Tilly  once  more,  where  the  Lech  empties  into 
the  Danube,  in  a  battle  which  brought  to  that  grim 
general  of  the  "  League  "  his  death-wound.  Thence 
Gustavus  pressed  on  victorious  by  way  of  Augsburg 
to  Munich,  the  Bavarian  capital.  Meanwhile  his 
Saxon  allies  had  made  themselves  masters  of  Bo- 
hemia. 

Ferdinand  IL,  lately  so  confident  of  his  mastery, 
now  saw  his  work  threatened  with  complete  ruin. 
In  his  distress,  he  turned  again  to  Wallenstein,  who 
thus  came  back  into  power,  at  the  close  of  163 1, 
practically  on  his  own  terms.  Wallenstein's  old  sol- 
diers gathered  round  him.  He  cared  nothing  for 
the  Edict  of  Restitution  or  for  the  religious  aspects 


The    Thirty    Years     War.  455 

of  the  war  ;  but  he  wanted  to  drive  out  the  foreign- 
ers, to  have  a  united  Germany  in  which  he  should 
hold  practical  dictatorship  as  leading  general,  and 
carve  out  a  principality  for  himself.  By  May,  1632, 
he  was  strong  enough  to  drive  the  Saxons  from  Bo- 
hemia,at  the  same  time  that  he  offered  them  terms  of 
peace  to  withdraw  them  from  the  Swedish  alliance. 
Thence  he  turned  to  meet  Gustavus  in  Bavaria.  On 
September  3,  Gustavus  tried  vainly  to  storm  Wal- 
lenstein's  intrenchments'near  Nuremberg.  Thence 
Wallenstein  marched  north  to  Saxony,  determined 
to  force  the  Saxons  to  make  peace.  Thither  Gus- 
tavus followed  ;  and  at  Liitzen,  a  few  miles  from 
Leipzig,  on  November  16,  1632,  in  a  terrific  battle, 
defeated  Wallenstein  only  to  lose  his  own  life.  But 
he  had  done  a  work  in  his  two  years  in  Germany 
that  was  enduring.  The  Edict  of  Restitution  had 
been  made  a  dead  letter  as  far  as  north  Germany 
was  concerned.  Had  Gustavus  lived  longer,  the 
political  tendency,  always  strong  in  him,  might 
have  led  him  to  a  mere  work  of  conquest ;  and,  after 
all,  he  was  a  foreigner  on  German  soil.  But,  as  it 
was,  his  memory  is  deservedly  cherished  by  Ger- 
man Protestantism  as  that  of  one  of  its  chief  bene- 
factors. 

After  the  death  of  Gustavus,  the  Swedes  con- 
tinued their  interference  in  German  affairs  under 
their  chancellor.  Axel  Oxenstjerna.  The  ablest 
native  German  leader  on  the  Protestant  side  was 
now  Bernhard  of  Saxe-Weimar.  And  in  April, 
1633,  he,  the  Swedes  and  many  Protestant  nobles 
of  southwestern  Germany  and  the  Rhineland  formed 


45^  The  Reformation. 

a  league  at  Heilbronn.  By  this  league,  captured 
ecclesiastical  property  when  the  population  was 
Catholic  was  disposed  of  with  as  little  regard  to  the 
wishes  of  the  inhabitants  as  Protestant  territories 
had  been  by  Ferdinand  II. ;  but  its  power  was  small. 
Meanwhile  Wallenstein  was  pursuing  an  independ- 
ent policy,  aiming  to  make  peace  with  Saxony  on 
the  bases  of  considerable  religious  toleration  and  of 
German  unity  against  foreign  influence,  whether 
Swedish,  French  or  Spanish.  He  gradually  drew 
upon  himself  the  suspicions  of  the  Spaniards,  of 
Ferdinand  II.  and  of  the  strict  Catholic  party.  A 
new  attempt  to  remove  him  from  command  resulted 
in  his  murder  by  one  of  his  officers  on  February  25, 
1634. 

With  the  death  of  Wallenstein  the  great  men  of 
the  early  struggle  had  passed  from  the  scene,  and 
with  one  more  event  the  original  character  of  the 
war  may  be  said  to  have  disappeared.  On  Septem- 
ber 6, 1634,  the  imperial  army  under  Ferdinand's  son, 
of  the  same  name,  aided  by  a  large  Spanish  force, 
defeated  Bernhard  of  Saxe-Weimar  and  the  Swedes 
at  Nordlingen,  in  a  battle  that  was  as  decisive  in  its 
determination  that  the  south  German  ecclesiastical 
lands  should  remain  in  Catholic  hands  as  Breiten- 
feld  had  been  for  north  German  Protestantism.  The 
lines  between  the  two  parties  had  been  practically 
drawn.  And  this  fact  is  evident  in  the  peace  made 
at  Prague  in  May,  1635,  between  the  emperor  and 
the  Saxon  elector.  Though  no  toleration  was  pro- 
posed for  Calvinists,  the  Edict  of  Restitution  was 
quietly  ignored,  and  the  year  1627  made  a  normal 


The   Thirty  Years    War.  457 


year  by  which  the  religious  status  of  the  territories 
involved  in  the  treaty  should  be  tested. 

But  for  Germany  itself,  as  a  whole,  there  was  no 
peace.  There  was  no  German  power  or  person 
strong  enough  to  secure  it.  And  from  now  to  the 
end  of  the  terrific  struggle  unhappy  Germany  was 
simply  the  battle-ground  of  foreign  politics ;  of 
Swedes  attempting  to  secure  the  Baltic  lands  ;  of 
Spaniards  anxious  to  keep  open  the  artery  of  com- 
munication between  Spain's  Italian  and  Netherland 
possessions  by  maintaining  Lorraine  and  the  Rhine- 
lands  in  their  own  or  in  friendly  hands — an  artery 
which  Dutch  and  English  mastery  at  sea  made 
doubly  precious;  of  Richelieu  striving  to  maim 
the  Spanish  monarchy  by  piercing  this  artery  and 
to  carry  the  French  boundaries  to  the  Rhine.  Spain 
had  the  support  of  the  emperor.  The  Protestants 
in  arms  sided  with  France  and  Sweden.  The  lead- 
ers shifted.  Ferdinand  III.  followed  his  father,  in 
1637,  on  the  imperial  throne  ;  Richelieu  was  suc- 
ceeded, in  1642,  by  Mazarin  ;  but  there  was  no 
change  of  policy.  In  the  long  struggle,  France 
gained  the  most.  The  foundations  of  the  brilliant 
military  reputation  of  the  France  of  Louis  XIV. 
were  laid. 

Yet  at  first  it  seemed  as  if  Spain  and  the  emperor 
would  have  the  upper  hand.  France  declared  open 
war  in  May,  1635,  after  having  long  supported  the 
Protestant  cause  by  subsidies.  But  the  French  gen- 
erals were  inexperienced,  and  the  French  attack  on 
the  Spanish  Netherlands  failed.  In  1636,  France 
itself  was  invaded  by  Spanish  troops.     But  the  tide 


45  8  The    Reformation. 

soon  turned.  In  1638,  Bernhard  of  Saxe-Weimar 
conquered  Alsace ;  his  death,  in  July,  1639,  put 
the  land  almost  completely  into  French  possession. 
The  same  year  the  Dutch  defeated  a  Spanish  fleet 
in  the  Downs.  Spain  seemed  on  the  verge  of  col- 
lapse through  the  damage  to  its  communications 
between  the  home-land  and  its  territories  in  Italy  and 
the  Netherlands.  In  1643,  the  roll  of  French  vic- 
tories began  with  the  defeat  of  the  Spaniards  at 
Rocroy  by  the  brilliant  great-grandson  of  the  Cond6 
of  early  Huguenot  struggles,  Turenne  manifested 
his  conspicuous  abilities  as  a  strategist  in  1644,  and 
in  1645,  Conde  defeated  the  forces  of  Maximilian  of 
Bavaria  at  Nordlingen.  The  same  year  the  Swedish 
general,  Torstenson,  overthrew  the  imperialists  at 
Jankau,  to  the  south  of  Prague.  In  1646,  the 
French  under  Turenne  and  the  Swedes  invaded 
Bavaria,  and  the  country  was  devastated,  till,  in 
May,  1648,  Maximilian  was  fully  ready  for  peace. 
Meanwhile  the  Swedes  were  in  possession  of  much 
of  Bohemia.     Germany  was  exhausted. 

In  these  years,  France  had  wrested  the  headship 
of  Europe  from  Spain.  The  counter-Reformation 
had  been  stopped  by  the  political  divisions  of  Ca- 
tholicism. Germany  longed  for  peace.  The  wretched 
land  had  been  plundered  for  a  generation  by  a  brutal 
soldiery.  Its  trade  had  been  ruined,  its  villages  and 
towns  destroyed,  its  morals  corrupted,  its  inhabit- 
ants woefully  decreased.  The  lethargy  of  exhaus- 
tion was  upon  the  land — a  lethargy  from  which  it 
did  not  recover  for  a  century.  In  October,  1648, 
peace  came  ^t  last  after  long  negotiations  at  Miin- 


Peace  of  Westphalia.  459 

ster  and  Osnabriick,  in  Westphalia.  Sweden  received 
a  portion  of  Pomerania  and  some  other  territories  in 
north  Germany.  France  was  given  much  of  Alsace. 
Maximilian  of  Bavaria  received  part  of  the  Palat- 
inate, and  was  confirmed  in  his  electoral  title.  The 
independence  of  Switzerland  and  of  the  Nether- 
lands, long  existent,  was  now  formally  admitted. 
But  the  chief  significance  of  the  Peace  of  West- 
phaHa  was  the  religious  provisions,  and  its  clear 
demonstration  that  the  counter-Reformation,  as  a 
whole,  had  abandoned  the  great  attempt  to  put  an 
end  to  Protestantism.  Protestants  and  Catholics 
were  guaranteed  equal  rights  in  the  empire  ;  and  the 
Protestants  were  now  recognized  as  including  not 
merely  Lutherans,  as  in  1555  and  1635,  but  Calvin- 
ists  as  well.  This  status  at  last  obtained  by  the 
Calvinists  was  largely  due  to  the  efforts  of  the  new 
ruler  of  Brandenburg,  FriedrichWilhelm,  the  "Great 
Elector,"  The  possession  of  ecclesiastical  property, 
which  had  been  so  largely  the  cause  of  the  war,  was 
compromised.  The  year  1624  was  taken  as  the 
standard.  Whichever  religious  party  enjoyed  its 
use  on  January  i,  of  that  year,  should  keep  it  in 
perpetuity  ;  and,  while  the  old  principle  cujus  regio 
ejus  religio  was  maintained  regarding  secular  territo- 
ries, and  the  ruler  still  had  the  right  to  drive  out  those 
who  disagreed  with  his  beliefs,  this  principle  was 
effectively  modified  by  the  provision  that  here,  too, 
1624  should  be  a  normal  year,  and  that  those  actu- 
ally exercising  their  worship  at  that  time  should  be 
allowed  to  continue  its  use  in  the  same  proportion 
to  other  forms  that  then  obtained.     A  ruler  could 


460  The  Re/or 7nation. 


no  longer  arbitrarily  change  the   religion   of  which 
his  subjects  had  been  adherents  in   1624.     To  the 
hereditary  Austrian  lands  of  the  emperor,  however, 
with  the  partial  exception  of  Silesia,  this  modifica- 
tion did  not  apply.     The  result  of  the  treaties  was, 
therefore,  that  the  Protestants  lost  Austria  and  Bo- 
hemia, as  well  as  all  claim  on   the  ecclesiastical  ter- 
ritories of  south  Germany  and  the  Rhineland,  which 
had  been  Catholic  at  the  normal  date.     The   Cath- 
oHcs  won,  therefore,   permanently  the  initial    suc- 
cesses of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.     But  the   Prot- 
estants gained  no  less  securely  the  disputed  north 
German  bishoprics  and   monasteries.      Even    more 
valuable  was   it    that    the   treaty    drew   the    lines, 
roughly  indeed  but  approximately,  as  they  actually 
existed  at   the   close  of  the  war  between  the  Cath- 
olic and  Protestant  populations  of  Germany.     The 
pope  protested.     Neither  party  was  wholly  satis- 
fied.    But  the  treaty  represented    a   practical   ad- 
justment ;  and,  with  its  ratification  by  France  and 
Sweden,  the  geography  of   Catholicism    and   Prot- 
estantism was  established  in  continental  Europe  on 
the  general  lines  of  demarkation  which  it  exhibits  to- 
day. The  fierce  struggle  had  ended  in  demonstrating 
that  Protestantism  could  no  more  be  crushed  than 
Roman  Catholicism  could  be  Protestantized.   On  the 
continent  of  Europe  the  year  1648  was,  therefore,  one 
of  the  milestones  of  historic  progress.     In  England 
and  Scotland,  indeed,  it  had  no  such  significance. 
There   the    struggle    became    one    between    unlike 
types  of  Protestantism   and  differing  conceptions  of 
civil  liberty,  which  was  to  continue  till  its  issue  in 


Peace  of  Westphalia.  461 

1689,  in  a  limited  personal,  rather  than  territorial, 
toleration  under  the  state  churches  for  the  several 
forms  of  Protestant  church-organization  which  had 
battled  for  more  than  a  century.  To  Catholics  it 
brought  no  indulgence,  and  full  Catholic  emancipa- 
tion was  not  to  come  in  England  till  1829. 

Though  no  dividing  line  can  be  rigidly  drawn  in 
the  progress  of  human  history,  the  year  1648  may 
well  serve  as  the  terminus  of  a  sketch  of  the  Ref- 
ormation on  the  continent  of  Europe.  Not  that 
it  designated  the  end  of  conflict — that  end  cannot 
yet  be  said  to  have  come.  Nor  even  that  it  saw 
the  conclusion  of  attempts  to  repress  Protestantism 
or  Catholicism  within  the  several  countries  of  west- 
ern Christendom — the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1685,  the  expulsion  of  the  Protestants 
from  Salzburg  in  1731,  the  various  disabilities  long 
imposed  on  Catholics  by  England,  Denmark  or 
Sweden,  are  evidence  to  the  contrary.  Nor  did 
it  mark  the  end  of  the  internal  development  of 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism.  Romanism  was  to 
go  on  into  Vaticanism;  Protestantism  to  divide  into 
multitudinous,  yet  related,  schools  and  sects.  But, 
by  the  year  1648,  the  Reformation  and  counter- 
Reformation  had  not  only  taken  on  their  completed 
forms,  but  the  lines  of  possession  had  been  drawn 
between  them  and  the  religious  wars  had  come  to 
an  end. 


Viewed  in  retrospect,  the  Reformation  age  is  the 
most  striking  period   in  religious  history  since  the 


462  The  Reforination. 

days  of  the  early  Church.  The  threads  of  all  mod- 
ern religious  life  in  western  Christendom  run  back 
into  it.  Its  range  of  doctrinal  discussion  was  nar- 
row, the  truths  about  which  its  controversies  raged 
were  few  ;  but  they  were  no  abstract  principles. 
They  touched  society  and  the  common  man  in  the 
relationships  of  every-day  life,  of  personal  piety,  of 
government  and  of  social  welfare.  It  was  not  an 
age  of  men  of  speculative  retirement,  of  contem- 
plative examination  and  development  of  an  abstruse 
theology.  It  was  preeminently  an  epoch  of  deeds. 
The  figures  that  tower  in  its  annals,  Luther, 
Zwingli,  Calvin,  Knox,  Ximenes,  Caraffa,  Loyola, 
Charles  v.,  William  of  Orange,  Gustavus  Adolphus, 
are  those  of  men  of  action.  And,  because  of  this 
fact,  no  age  in  the  history  of  the  Church  appeals 
more  to  the  imagination.  The  stage  it  afforded 
gave  ample  room  for  the  display  of  the  noblest  and 
the  basest  passions  of  which  human  nature  is  ca- 
pable. The  courage  of  a  Luther,  the  organizing 
forcefulness  of  a  Calvin,  the  intellectual  stimulus  of 
a  Melanchthon,  the  devotion  of  a  Xavier,  the  per- 
sistence of  a  Philip  II.,  the  cruelties  of  an  Alva,  the 
fanaticism  of  a  John  of  Leyden,  the  fearlessness  of 
a  Knox,  exhibit  qualities  as  impressive  and  individu- 
alities as  striking  as  any  age  of  the  world  can  show. 
Yet  mighty  as  were  the  giants  of  the  Reformation 
age,  the  principles  that  they  championed  were  yet 
mightier.  The  central  impulse  of  the  Reformation 
was  a  revival  of  religion.  That  hope,  in  an  external 
and  mediaeval  form,  animated  Isabella  and  Ximenes 
at  the  dawn  of  the  Spanish  Awakening.     That  de- 


A  Struggle  of  Giants.  46^ 


sire,  in  a  new  and  revolutionary  faith  that  strove  to 
burst  the  shackles  of  externalism  which  the  middle 
ages  had  imposed  and  to  bring  the  human  soul  into 
direct  contact  with  God,  was  the  starting-point  of 
Luther's  work.  The  Reformation  vitalized  the 
religious  life  of  Europe  ;  but  it  divided  Western 
Christendom  as  to  the  nature  of  religion  itself  and 
of  the  institutions  by  which  it  is  propagated.  By 
the  Catholic,  the  highest  Christian  duty  was  seen  in 
obedience  to  the  infallible  voice  of  a  Church  that 
claims  to  be  the  depository  of  truth,  the  dispenser 
of  sacraments  with  which  alone  all  certainty  of  salva- 
tion is  conjoined,  the  possessor  of  a  true  priesthood 
of  divine  appointment — a  Church  characterized  by 
unity  expressed  in  allegiance  to  a  single  earthly  head. 
To  the  Protestant,  the  profoundest  obligations  were 
to  use  his  divinely-given  faculties  to  ascertain  for 
himself  what  is  the  truth  of  God  as  contained — so  the 
Reformation  age  would  say — in  His  infallible  and 
absolutely  authoritative  Word;  and  to  enter  through 
faith  into  vital,  immediate  and  personal  relations 
with  his  Saviour. 

These  principles  divide  Christendom  to  this  hour, 
and  bid  fair  to  do  so  for  centuries  to  cpme.  And, 
as  Christian  men  still  debate  their  truth,  so  they 
disagree  as  to  what  the  effect  of  their  application 
has  been  upon  religion  and  society.  But  no  wise 
Protestant  will  lightly  value  the  birthright  of  free- 
dom which  the  Reformation  won  for  him.  Nor 
can  he  regard  a  movement  which  has  stimulated  in- 
dependence of  religious  thought,  has  promoted 
investigation,    has  emphasized  individual  responsi- 


464  The  Reformation. 

bility,  and  has  made  social,  political  and  intellectual 
life  freer  in  a  thousand  ways  as  other  than  an  un- 
measured blessing.  The  true  Catholic,  while  deny- 
ing the  worth  of  much  that  the  Protestant  calls 
good  and  deploring  the  loss  to  Roman  obedience  of 
a  large  portion  of  Christendom,  can,  nevertheless, 
rejoice  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  regeneration  which 
the  Reformation  wrought  in  the  Roman  commun- 
ion. To  both  alike  the  Reformation  brought  good  ; 
and  western  Christendom  has  reason  to  rejoice  to 
this  day  that  the  transition  from  the  mediaeval  to 
the  modern  world  was  accompanied  by  a  profound, 
searching  and  transforming  revival  of  religion. 


INDEX. 


Acquaviva,  Claudio,  382. 

Adrian  VI.,  pope,  69,  70,  128, 
358. 

Agricola,  Johann,  106,   183,  218. 

Agricola,  Rudolph,  29,  31. 

Agfricola,  Stephan,  173. 

Ailli,  Pierre  d',  35,  168. 

Aibrecht,  archbishop  of  Mainz, 
93.  94- 

Aibrecht,  bishop  of  Strassburg,72. 

Aibrecht  V.  of  Bavaria,  401,  440. 

Aibrecht  of  Brandenburg-Culm- 
bach,  212. 

Aibrecht  of  Prussia,  285,  286. 

Alcala  university  founded,  62. 

Alciati,  Andrea,  237. 

Alcock,  John,  bishop  of  Ely,  68. 

Aleander,  Girolamo,  72,  114-121, 
360. 

Alexander  IV.,  pope,  83. 

Alexander  VI.,  pope,  8,  16,  17, 
6r,  358. 

Alexander  of  Parma,  429,  435- 
437. 

Allen,  William,  cardinal,  433,  434. 

Alva,  Federico  of,  427. 

Alva,  Fernando,  duke  of,  406, 
407,  414,  422,  423,  427,  428, 
462. 

Alziati,  Gianpaolo,  301. 

Amboise,  conspiracy  of,  412. 

Amsdorf,  Nikolaus  von,  106,  123, 
125  ;  doctrinal  controversies, 
208,  218,  219. 

Anabaptists,  the,  origin  and  his- 
tory, 50,  159-163,  335-346  ;  be- 
liefs, 339,  340 ;  the  Miinster 
tragedy,  342-344  ;  see  also  182, 
183,  187. 

Andersen,  Lars,  280,  281. 


Andrsea,  Jakob,  222. 

Anselm  of  Canterbury,  5,45,  50, 

85. 

Anshelm,  Thomas,  103. 

Antoine  of  Vendome  (Bourbon), 
410,  412,  413,  424. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  theology  of, 
25,  26,  63,  362-364  ;  on  indul- 
gences, 92  ;  on  transubstantia- 
tion,  168  ;  mentioned,  50,  96, 
113,243- 

Araoz,  a  Jesuit,  379. 

Aresen,  bishop,  285. 

Argyll,  earl  of,  322,  323. 

Armada,  the  Great,  425,  433-435. 

Arran,  see  Hamilton. 

Articles  of  religion,  English,  310. 

Articles,  Schmalkaldic,  194,  195. 

Articles,  Schwabach,  181,  183. 

Augsburg  Confession,  see  Con- 
fession. 

Augsburg  Interim,  see  Interim. 

Augsburg,  Peace  of,  see  Peace. 

August,  elector  of  Saxony,  218, 
221,  222. 

Augustinian  Order,  the,  83,  84. 

Augustine,  Saint,  83-85,  90,  166, 

363- 
Balboa,  Vasco  de,  33. 
Barnabites,  the,  365,  366. 
Bassi,  Matteo,  366. 
Beaton,  David,  cardinal,  316,  317, 

319-  320. 
Beaton,  James,  archbishop,  315, 

316. 
Beda,  Noel,  239. 
Bernhard,   Saint,    5,   45,    50,    85, 

336. 
Bernhard  of  Saxe-Weimar,    455, 

456,  458. 


465 


466 


Index. 


Berquin,  Louis  de,  229,  230,  239, 

373- 
Berthelier,    Philibert,    the    elder, 

233,  262. 
Berthelier,  Philibert,  the  younger, 

262. 
Berthold,    archbishop   of    Mainz, 

72. 
Bessarion,  cardinal,  28. 
Bethlen  Gabor,  448,  450. 
Beuckelssen,   Jan,    see    John    of 

Leyden. 
Beza,  Theodore  de,  238,  240,  275, 

276,  412. 
Biandrata,  Giorgio,  287,  290,  300, 

301. 
Biel,  Gabriel,  80,  90. 
Bishops,  attitude   of    continental 

reformers  toward,  139. 
Bismarck,  Otto  von,  210. 
Biandrata,  see  Biandrata. 
Blaurock,  Georg,   160,   r6i,  338, 

339- 
Bobadilla,  Nicolo,  374,  380. 
Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  28. 
Bohemia,   Reformation    in,    288, 

289,  443-445- 
Boleyn,  Anne,  324. 
Bolsec,  J6r6me  Hermes,  265,  266. 
Boniface  VIII.,  pope,  7,  11,  24. 
Boniface  IX.,  pope,  8. 
Bonivard,  Fran9ois,  233. 
Bora,    Katharina    von,     Luther's 

wife,  133. 
Borgia,  Duke  Francisco,  380,  381, 

386. 
Bothwell,  James    Hepburn,    earl 

of,  332,  333. 
Brant,  Sebastian,  72. 
Bray,  Guy  de,  271,  307.    . 
Brederode,  Henry  of ,  421. 
Breitenfeld,  battle  of,  454. 
Brenz,  Johann,  173,  197. 
Brijonnet,      Guillaume,     bishop, 

227,  228,  230. 
Briessmann,  Johann,  285. 
Brouet,  Pascal,  374,  379. 
Bruccioli,  Antonio,  296. 
Bucer,  Martin,  life,  165,  166  ;  sac- 


ramental dispute,  170,  172-, 
irenic  efforts,  175,  186  ;  the 
Confessio  Tetrapolitana,  186  ; 
disputations  at  Worms,  Re- 
gensburg  and  Berne,  197,  198, 
231  ;  Philip  of  Hesse's  big- 
amy, 200,  201  ;  acquaintance 
with  Calvin,  255. 

Bude,  Guillaume,  30. 

Bunzli,  Gregovius,  149. 

Bugenhagen,  Johann,  123,  284. 

Bullinger,  Heinrich,  159,  180, 
272,  273. 

Bure,  Idelette  de,  Calvin's  wife, 

255- 

Cajetan,  cardinal,  99,  114,  364. 

Calvin,  Antoine,  251. 

Calvin,  John,  early  life,  235-238  ; 
conversion,  238-240  ;  the  Cop 
oration,  240;  a  wanderer,  241, 
242  ;  the  Institutes,  241-244, 
254,  403 ;  principal  theologic 
teachings,  244-251,  302,  363  ; 
early  labors  at  Geneva,  251- 
254  ;  at  Strassburg,  254-256  ; 
lettertoSadoleto,  254,  256,  294  ; 
debates  at  Worms  and  Regens- 
burg,  197,  255  ;  acquaintance 
with  Bucer,  Melanchthon  and 
Knox,  255,  322,  323  ;  mar- 
riage, 255  ;  liturgy,  255,  256  ; 
return  to  Geneva,  256,  257 ; 
catechism,  257  ;  church-gov- 
ernment, 257-259 ;  severity, 
259,  260,  269,  270 ;  leadership 
in  education  and  industry,  260, 
261  ;  interest  in  missions,  388  ; 
opponents,  261-269 ;  CastelHo, 
264,  265  ;  Bolsec,  265  ;  Ser- 
vetus,  266-269  ;  Westphal,  221  ; 
the  anti-Trinitarians,  300,  301  ; 
the  Spirituels,  352;  influence 
outside  Geneva,  270-273,  311, 
312  ;  activity,  273,  274  ;  death, 
274,  404  ;  mentioned,  180,  373, 
462. 

Calvin,  Marie,  251. 

Campegi,  Lorenzo,  cardinal,  128, 
129,  132,  186,  357. 


Index. 


467 


Canisius,  see  Kanis. 

Cano,    Melchior,   theologian,  63, 

364,  373,  394- 

Capito,  Wolfgang,  reformer,  164, 
165,  170,  255. 

Cappel,  battle  of,  179  ;  peace  of, 
178. 

Capuchins,  the,  366. 

Caraccioli,  Galeazzo,  299. 

Caraffa,  Giovanni  Pietro  (Paul 
IV.),  indebtedness  to  Spanish 
Awakening,  70 ;  reformatory 
work  in  Italy,  294,  297,  361  ; 
the  Inquisition,  199  ;  cardinal, 
359;  papacy  of,  361,  362,  406, 
407;  opposes  Loyola,  374;  men- 
tioned, 357,  360,403,  419,  462. 

Carillo,  Alfonso,  60. 

Carlstadt,  Andreas  Bodenstein  of, 
letter  of  Luther  to,  100 ;  at 
Leipzig  disputation,  105,  106, 
109  ;  changes  at  Wittenberg, 
123-126  ;  marries,  126  ;  breaks 
with  Luther,  126,  130,  140; 
view  of  the  Supper,  170 ; 
preaching  in  Denmark,  282. 

Carlos,  prince  of  Spain,  331 

Carnesecchi,  Pietro,  294. 

Caroli,  Pierre,  253. 

Casas,  Bartolome  de  las,  389. 

Castellio,  Sebastien,  264,  265, 269. 

Cateau-Cambr6sis,  treaty  of,  see 
Treaty. 

Catechism,  Calvin's,  257. 

Catechism,  Heidelberg,  273,  439. 

Catechism,  Luther's,  143. 

Catechism,  Racovian,  287. 

Cathari,  the,  47,  64. 

Catherine  of  Aragon,  queen  of 
England,  309. 

Catherine  de'  Medici,  queen  of 
France,  323,  411,  412-426,  431. 

Cauvin  (Calvin),  Gerard,  235-237. 

Cazalla,  Agostino,  292. 

Chandieu,  Antoine,  271. 

Chantal,  Jeanne  de,  367. 

Charlemagne,  emperor,  5,  109. 

Charles  V.,  emperor,  parentage, 
inheritance  and  possessions,  15, 


22  ;  indebtedness  to  Ximenes, 
61  ;  Reuchlin  controversy,  76  ; 
elected  emperor,  104,  109  ;  re- 
ligious views,  68,  69,  109  ;  at 
Reichstag  of  W^orms,  1 16-120  ; 
repelled  by  Luther,  120  ;  hands 
tied,  16,  121,  127  ;  victory  at 
Pavia,  134;  successes  of  1529, 
144  ;  the  Reichstag  at  Augs- 
burg, 182-187  ;  addressed  by 
Zwingli,  176  ;  unable  to  crush 
Protestants,  189-191  ;  truce  of 
Nuremberg,  191  ;  efforts  for  a 
general  council,  193,  392,  393  ; 
league  of  Nuremberg  and 
Frankfort  suspension,  195,  196  ; 
union  efforts,  196-198,  255, 
295  ;  uses  Philip  of  Hesse's 
bigamy,  201,  202  ;  plans  to 
crush  Protestantism,  202-204  ; 
defeats  Protestants,  205,  206, 
451;  the  Interims,  207,208; 
policy  in  the  Netherlands,  304- 
307  ;  himself  defeated,  209- 
212  ;  retirement  and  death,  212- 
214,  405,  406  ;  character,  214, 
226;  mentioned,  358,  359,  361, 
391,  401,  403,  407,  416-418, 
420,  428,  462. 

Charles  I.  of  England,  449. 

Charles  VIII.  of  France,  11,  16, 
225. 

Charles  IX.  of  France,  407,  412, 
423,  424,  426. 

Charles  the  Bold,  21. 

Charles,   Cardinal  Bourbon,  430, 

436. 
Charles  Emmanuel  of  Savoy,  444. 
Chemnitz,  Martin,  222. 
Christian  of  Anhalt,  443-445. 
Christian  of  Brunswick,  446. 
Christian   II.  of   Denmark,    278, 

279,  282-285. 
Christian  III.  of  Denmark,  284, 

285. 
Christian  IV.    of   Denmark,  447, 

449-451. 
Christian  L,   elector  of   Saxony, 
222, 


468 


Index. 


Christian  II.,  elector  of  Saxony, 

222. 

Christine,  wife  of  Philip  of  Hesse, 
199. 

Chrysoloras,  Manuel,  28. 

Cisnero,  Garcia,  372. 

C16manges,  Nicholas  of ,  9,  35. 

Clement  v.,  pope,  11. 

Clement  VI.,  pope,  8,  38. 

Clement  VII.,  pope,  character 
and  work,  358,  359  ;  indirectly 
aids  Protestantism,  16,  134- 
136  ;  political  policy,  306,  405  ; 
death,  193  ;  mentioned,  128, 
182,  280,  294,  309,  411. 

Cochlaeus,  Johann,  197. 

Codure,  Jean,  374. 

Coligny,  Gaspard  de,  410,  415, 
416,  423-425- 

Colet,  John,  29,  31,  308. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  33,  51. 

Concord,  Formula  of,  222. 

Concord,  Wittenberg,  192,  193. 

Cond6,    Henry,    prince   of,    425, 

431- 
Cond6,    Louis  I.,  prince  of,  410- 

413.  415-  _ 

Conde,  Louis  II.,  prince  of,  458. 

Confessio  Tetrapolitana,  186. 

Confession,  Augsburg,  occasion 
and  presentation,  182-184  ;  ne- 
gotiations and  defence,  186- 
188  ;  a  creed-test,  188,  191,  193, 
198,  214,  395  ;  the  altered  edi- 
tion, 218  ;  Formula  of  Concord 
issued  on  fiftieth  anniversary, 
222. 

Confession,  Belgic,  271,  307. 

Confession,  French,  271. 

Confession,  Scottish,  271,  327. 

Conrad  of  Waldhausen,  42. 

Contarini,  Gasparo,  cardinal,  ca- 
reer, 294,  295,  359  ;  at  Regens- 
burg  debate,  198,  297  ;  favors 
Loyola,  374 ;  mentioned,  357, 
360. 

Cop,  Nicholas,  240,  373. 

Copernicus,  51. 


Coppin,  a  Spirituel,  351. 
Corault,  Elie,  252. 
Cordatus,  Conrad,  218. 
Cordier,  Mathurin,  236. 
Cortez,  Hernando,  34. 
Cotta,  Frau  Ursula,  80. 
Council  of  Aranda,  57. 
Council  of  Basel,  28,  35,  54,  93. 
Council    of    Constance,    28,    35, 

36,   168  ;   condemns  Huss,  43, 

44,   54  ;    criticised   by    Luther, 

107,  108,  118. 
Council  of  Ferrara  and  Florence, 

28,  395- 
Council  of  Pisa,  35. 
Council    of  Trent,   sessions   and 

work,   392-401  ;    see  also   198, 

203,  207,  209,  360,  403. 
Cranmer,     Thomas,    archbishop, 

298,  299,  309,  311. 
Crawar,  Paul,  315. 
Crotus  Rubianus,  76,  108,  133, 
Cruciger,  Kaspar,  173,  197. 
Crypto-Calvinism,  220-222. 
Dalberg,  Johann,  bishop,  72. 
Danes,  Pierre,  238. 
Dante,  28. 
Darnley,  Henry  Stuart,  Lord,'33i, 

332- 

Denk,  Hans,  338. 

Denmark,  Reformation  of,  282- 
284. 

Desnoz,  Claudine,  Beza's  wife, 
275. 

D6vay,  Matthias   Biro,   289,  290. 

Deza,  Diego  de,  65. 

Diane  de  Poitiers,  411. 

Diaz,  Bartholomew,  33. 

Dominic,  Saint,  46,  370. 

Doumergue,  Prof.  E.,  239. 

Drake,  Sir  Francis,  432. 

Eck,  Johann  Maier  of,  opposes 
Luther,  96  ;  Leipzig  disputa- 
tion, 105-109  ;  obtains  papal 
bull,  114,  115  ;  influence  at 
Ingolstadt,  103  ;  acquainted 
with  Hubmaier,  160  ;  at  Augs- 
burg,   183-187  ;    in   debate   at 


hidex 


469 


Baden,    Worms    and    Regens- 
burg,  163,  197,  198;  mentioned, 

133. 

Edict  of  Nantes,  437,  438,  461. 

Edict  of  Restitution,  451,  454- 
456. 

Edict  of  Worms,  120,  121,  127, 
12S,  134,  14-,,  405. 

Edward  I.  of  England,  12. 

Edward  III.  of  England,  12. 

Edward  VI.  of  England,  211, 
310,  317,  320. 

Egmont,  Lamoral,  count  of,  407, 
420,  422. 

Einarsen,  Gisser,  bishop,  285. 

Elizabeth  of  England,  policy, 
312,  313,  432-434  ;  relations  to 
Scottish  Reformation,  324,  326, 
332,  333,  369  ;  the  Jesuits,  386  ; 
the  Armada,  434,  435  ;  men- 
tioned, 248,  403,  405,  408. 

England,  Reformation    in,    308- 

313- 
Enzinas,  Francisco,  292. 
EpistolK    Obscurorum    Virorum, 

Erasmus  Desiderius,  services  to 
learning,  30,  31,  51  ;  theory  of 
reform,  53  ;  opinion  of  bull 
against  Luther,  115  ;  jest  about 
the  Reformation,  134  ;  dis- 
agreements with  Luther,  132, 
217,  245  ;  at  Basel,  147  ;  ac- 
quaintance with  Q^^colampa- 
dius,  164  ;  mentioned,  305,  308. 

Erch,  Jan,  306. 

Erich  of  Brunswick,  195. 

Ernst  of  Brunswick-Liineburg, 
145,  185. 

Ernst  of  Mansfeld,  444,  446, 
448,  450. 

Erskine,  John,  322,  323. 

Escobar,  Antonio,  384. 

Este,  Ercole,  duke  of,  296. 

Estoile,  Pierre  de  1',  237. 

Eugene  IV.,  pope,  395. 

Faber,  Johann,  156. 

Faber  Stapulensis,  see  Le  Ffevre. 

Faniilists,  see  Love, 


Fare!,  Guillaume,  early  reform- 
atory work,  230,  231  ;  labors  in 
Geneva,  234,  235,  251-254; 
relations  to  Calvin,  234,  251, 
257  ;  death  of  Servetus,  269. 

Favre,  Pierre,  373,  375,  379,  380. 

Ferdinand  I.,  emperor,  Regens- 
burg  meeting,  129  ;  rules  Wiir- 
temberg,  192;  Nuremberg 
league,  195 ;  influenced  by 
Philip  of  Hesse's  bigamy,  201  ; 
supports  Swiss  Catholics,  177; 
Bohemians  refuse  to  aid,  288; 
negotiates  treaty  of  Passau, 
2x2  ;  imperial  reign  begins, 
213,  406  ;  declaration  at  Augs- 
burg, 215;  the  cup  for  the 
laity,  394 ;  religious  policy, 
440. 

Ferdinand  II.,  emperor,  443-457. 

Ferdinand    III.,     emperor,    456, 

457- 

Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  king  of 
Spain,  Spain  under,  14,  15  ; 
reformatory  work,  58-68  ;  men- 
tioned, 22,  357,  368,  369. 

Ficino,  Marsilio,  28. 

Flacius,  Matthias  (Illyricus),  208, 
218-220. 

Forge,  Etienne  de  la,  239. 

Formula  of  Concord,  see  Concord. 

Francis  of  Assisi,  Saint,  15,  46, 
370. 

Francis  I.  of  France,  France  un- 
der, II,  12  ;  character  and  aims, 
226  ;  rivalry  with  Charles  V., 
109,  116  ;  defeat  at  Pavia,  134  ; 
aided  byClement VII.,  16,  135  ; 
treaty  of  1 529,  144;  addressed 
by  Zwingli,  176;  Charles  V. 
secures  his  neutrality,  203  ;  aids 
Le  Fevre,  228 ;  relations  to 
Berquin,  230  ;  humanistic  sym- 
pathies, 238  ;  attitude  toward 
French  Protestants,  242  ;  Cal- 
vin's letter,  243  ;  mentioned, 
369,  405,  409. 

Francis  II.  of  France,  313,  326, 
329,  407-409,  412, 


470 


Index. 


Franck,  Sebastian,  346-348,  350, 

354- 
Frangois    of     Anjou     (Alen9on), 

427.  430. 
Frankfort  Suspension,  196. 
Franz     of    Brunswick-Liineburg, 

185. 
Franz  of  Sickingen,  19. 
Fraticelli,  the,  47. 
Frederick    Barbarossa,    emperor, 

19. 
Frederick    I.  of    Denmark,     283, 

284. 
Frederick  tlie  Great    of  Prussia, 

210. 
Fregoso,  Federigo,  296,  359. 
Friedrich,    bishop  of    Augsburg, 

72. 
Friedrich  III.,  elector  of  the  Pa- 
latinate, favors  Calvinism,  272, 

273.  439- 

Friedrich  IV.,  elector  of  the  Pa- 
latinate, 442. 

Friedrich  V. ,  elector  of  the  Pala- 
tinate, in  Thirty  Years'  War, 
444-446,  449- 

Friedrich  the  Wise,  elector  of 
Saxony,  founds  university  of 
Wittenburg,  88  ;  favor  to  Lu- 
ther and  Melanchthon,  91,  98- 
100,  103  ;  Leo  X.  strives  to  in- 
fluence, 104,  105  ;  disregards 
bull  against  Luther,  115  ;  de- 
fends him  after  Reichstag  of 
Worms,  120-123  ;  death,  135. 

Friedrich  II.  of  Silesia,  348. 

Friedrich  Wilhelm  of  Branden- 
burg, 459. 

Froment,  Antoine,  231,  232,  234. 

Fuente,  Ponce  de  la,  292. 

Fugger,  banker  of  Augsburg,  51. 

Gama,  Vasco  da,  33. 

Geiler  (of  Kaisersberg),  Johann, 
preacher  at  Strassburg,  72. 

Gentile,  Giovanni,  300. 

Georg  of  Brandenburg  (Ans- 
pach),  145,  185. 

Georg,  duke  of  Saxony,  106,  196, 
197,  199. 


Gerson,  Jean  Charlier,  35,  80. 

Gil,  Juan,  292. 

Giotto,  29. 

Glencairn,  the  earl  of,  322,   323. 

Goschel,  bishop,  an  Anabaptist, 
338. 

Gotz  von  Berlichingen,  19. 

Granvella,  Antoine  Perrenot  of, 
cardinal,  in  Netherlands,  418, 
420. 

Granvella,  Nicolas  Perrenot  of, 
imperial  counsellor,  197. 

Grebel,  Conrad,  Anabaptist,  160, 
161,  338- 

Gregory  I.,  pope,  5. 

Gregory  XV.,  pope,  391. 

Gribaldi,  Matteo,  300. 

Gropper,  Johann,  197,  198. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  304. 

Gruet,  Jacques,  263,  264. 

Guise,  Charles  of,  duke  of  Ma- 
yenne,  431,  436,  437. 

Guise,  Claude,  duke  of,  409. 

Guise,  Frangois,  duke  of,  406- 
414. 

Guise,  Henry,  duke  of,  414,  424, 
426,  427,  430,  431. 

Gustavus  Adolphus  of  Svi^eden, 
services  to  German  Protestant- 
ism, 447-455,  462. 

Gustavus  Vasa,  see  Vasa. 

Hagenau,  conference  at,  197. 

Haller,  Berthold,  163. 

Hamilton,  James,  earl  of  Arran, 
316,  317,  321,  322. 

Hamilton,  John,  archbishop,  321. 

Hamilton,  Patrick,  315,  316. 

Hedio,  Kaspar,  165,  172,  175, 
255. 

Heidelberg  Catechism,  see  Cate- 
chism. 

Heinrich  of  Brunswick,  195. 

Heinrich,  duke  of  Saxony,  196, 
204. 

Held,  Matthias,  imperial  chan- 
cellor, 195. 

Henri  d'Albret,  king  of  Navarre, 
227. 

Henry  III.,  emperor,  19. 


Index. 


47^ 


Henry  IV.  of  England,  12. 

Henry  VII.  of  England,  13. 

Henry  VIII.  of  England,  early 
reformatory  efforts,  6S,  69 ; 
aids  Charles  V.  against  France, 
202  ;  breach  with  Rome  and 
Anglican  Reformation,  308- 
311,  313,  316,  323  ;  mentioned, 
13,  24S. 

Henry  II.  of  France,  aids  Ger- 
man Protestants,  211,  212  ;  pol- 
icy and  reign,  406-409,  411; 
mentioned,  380. 

Henry  III.  of  France,  reign  and 
character,  407,  426,  427,  430- 
432,  436. 

Henry  IV.  of  France,  Huguenot 
struggles,  424-427,  430-432  ; 
reign,  436-438  ;  the  Edict  of 
Nantes,  437  ;  mentioned,   442, 

447- 
Henry,  "  the  Navigator,"  prince 

of  Portugal,  33. 
Hildebrand,  Pope  Gregory  VII., 

4,  5-  7.  24. 

Hoen,  Cornells,  169. 

Hofmann,  Melchior,  Anabaptist, 
341-343.  350. 

Honter,  Johann,  reformer,  2S9. 

Hoogstraten,  Jacob  van,  Reuchlin 
controversy,  74-76,  97. 

Hooper,  John,  bishop,  311. 

Horn,  Philip,  count  of,  420,  422. 

Hubmaier,  Balthasar,  Anabap- 
tist, 160,  338,  339,  354. 

Hugues,  Besangon,  233. 

Hungary,  Reformation  in,  289, 
290, 

Huss,  John,  Bohemian  reformer, 
37,  40,  43,  44,  54,  288 ;  ap- 
proved by  Luther,  107,  108, 
lie,  118;  on  the  church,  246. 

Hut,  Hans,  Anabaptist,  338. 

Huter,   Jacob,   Anabaptist,    338, 

339- 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  73,  76,  108, 

no. 
Iceland,  Reformation  in,  285. 
Individualism,  influence   in    pre- 


paring way   for    Reformation, 
50-52  ;  finds  expression  in  Cal- 
vin, 250. 
Indulgences,  doctrine  of,  92-95  ; 
misused,    8 ;    Luther's    theses, 

95,  96- 

Innocent  III.,  pope,  5,  18. 

Innocent  IV.,  pope,  83. 

Innocent  VIII.,  pope,  8. 

Inquisition,  the  Spanish,  64-67  ; 
the  Roman,  198,  297,  361,  379. 

Interim,  the  Augsburg,  207,  208  ; 
the  Leipzig,  208,  218. 

Isabella  of  Castile,  queen  of 
Spain,  Spain  under,  14 ;  re- 
formatory work,  58-68,  117  ; 
mentioned,    22,    109,    357,  368. 

Italy,  reformatory  impulses  in, 
292-304. 

James  I.  of  England  (VI.  of 
Scotland),  332,  353,  446. 

James  I.  of  Scotland,  313. 

James  IV.  of  Scotland,  314. 

James  V.  of  Scotland,  316. 

Jay,  Claude,  374,  380. 

Jeanne  d'Albret,  410. 

Jena,  University  of,  founded,  219. 

Jesuits,  the,  foundation  and  work, 
368-392  ;  mentioned,  282,  290, 

364,  433- 

Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg, 
196,  203. 

Joanna  of  Spain,  22. 

Johann  of  Brandenburg,  210, 
211. 

Johann,  elector  of  Saxony,  forms 
league  of  Torgau,  135  ;  the 
Saxon  "visitation,"  142;  pro- 
test at  Speier,  145  ;  league 
for  defence,  146  ;  sends  theolo- 
gians to  Marburg  Colloquy, 
173  ;  at  Augsburg  Reichstag, 
182-185  ;  signs  Augsburg  Con- 
fession, 185  ;  leader  of  Schmal- 
kaldic  league,  189. 

Johann  Albrecht  of  Mecklen- 
burg, 2x1. 

Johann  Friedrich  of  Brunswick- 
Luneburg,  185. 


472 


Index. 


Johann  Friedrich,  elector  of  Sax- 
ony, the  "  Schmalkaldic  Arti- 
cles," 194;  quarrel  with  Duke 
Moritz,  204  ;  defeated  and  im- 
prisoned by  Charles  V.,  205, 
206  ;  released,  212. 

Johann  Georg',  elector  of  Saxony, 
in  Thirty  Years'  War,  443,  445, 

453,  456. 

John  XXII.,  pope,  39. 

John  XXIII.,  pope,  8. 

John,  bishop  of  Geneva,  233. 

John  of  Austria,  in  the  Nether- 
lands, 428,  429. 

John  of  Denmark,  284. 

John  of  England,  12. 

John  III.  of  Portugal,  401. 

John  III.  of  Sweden,  282. 

John  Sigismund  of  Transylvania, 
290. 

John  of  God,  367. 

John  of  Leyden,  Anabaptist,  at 
Miinster,  342-344,  354,  462. 

John  of  Ruysbroek,  45. 

Jonas,  Justus,  123,  172,  183. 

Joris,  David,  fanatic,    345,    352, 

354. 

Juan  de  la  Cruz,  367. 

Julius  II.,  pope,  addressed,  7  ; 
character,  8  ;  politics  of,  16, 
17  ;  Luther  visits  Rome  under, 
88  ;  mentioned,  62,  93,  358. 

Julius  III.,  pope,  209,  361. 

Justification,  Luther's  doctrine  of, 
86-88. 

Kadan,  Treaty  of,  see  Treaty. 

Kaiser,  Jakob,  burned,   177,   178. 

Kanis,  Peter,  work  as  a  Jesuit  in 
Germany,  380,  381. 

Kempis,  Thomas  a,  305,  372. 

Kennedy,  James,  bishop,  314. 

Knipperdolling,  Bernt,  Anabap- 
tist, 342-344- 

Knox,  John,  character,  317  ;  early 
life,  318,  319;  a  Protestant, 
319  ;  imprisonment,  320  ;  Eng- 
lish ministry,  321  ;  exile,  322  ; 
return  to  Scotland,  322  ;  Gene- 
van ministry,  323  ;   approval  of 


Genevan  discipline,  270  ;  final 
return  to  Scotland,  324 ;  re- 
formatory work,  325-329 ;  the 
Confession,  271,  327  ;  church- 
government,  328,  329  ;  struggle 
with  Queen  Mary,  329,  330, 
334  ;  death,  334  ;  mentioned, 
404,  462. 

Knox,  William,  318. 

Kunigonda,  princess,  74. 

Lainez,  Diego,  Jesuit,  373,  375, 
379,381,  382,386,  394. 

Lambert,  Franjois,  138,  139,  175, 
316- 

Lang,  A.,  239. 

La  Renaudie,  Calvinist  intriguer, 

4", 
Lasco,  John  a,  Polish    reformer, 

287. 
Latimer,  Hugh,  English  reformer, 

311. 
League  of  Cambrai,  17. 
League,  the  French  Catholic,  426, 

427,  430-432,  434-437,  442. 
League,    the    German     Catholic, 

442,  445-447,  449,  453,  454- 

League,  the  Holy,   17. 

League  of  Nuremberg,  195. 

League  of  Schmalkalden,  188, 
189,  191,  193-195,  201-206, 

League  of  Torgau,  135. 

Lebrija,  Antonio  de,  Spanish 
humanist,  30,  62,  63. 

Le  F^vre,  Jacques,  character  and 
work,  227-229 ;  services  to 
learning,  30,  31  ;  mentioned, 
230,  231,  239,  241,  251,  277. 

Lefranc,  Jeanne,  Calvin's  mother, 

235- 

Leipzig  disputation,  the,  106- 
108. 

Leipzig  Interim,  see  Interim. 

Lennox,  the  earl  of,  334. 

Leo  X.,  pope,  claims,  7  ;  politics 
of,  17  ;  indulgences,  93  ;  fails  to 
appreciate  gravity  of  Lutheran 
revolt,  97  ;  Luther's  attitude 
toward,  98,  99,  113,  114  ;  seeks 
conciliation,  105  ;   bull   against 


Inaex. 


473 


Luther,  114,  115  ;   death,  128  ; 

mentioned,  293,  358. 
Leslie,  John,  319. 
L'Hopital,  Michel  de,  412,  415. 
Libertines,  see  Spirituels. 
Lombard,  Peter,  theologian,  88. 
Lorraine,   Charles,    cardinal     of, 

409,  414,  415- 
Louis  of  Bavaria,  emperor,  39. 
Louis  VL  of  France,  10. 
Louis  IX.  of  France,  10. 
Louis  XL  of  France,  11,  22,  225. 
Louis  XII.  of  France,  11,  225. 
Louis  XIII.  of  France,  447. 
Louis  XIV.  of  France,  437,  438, 

457- 

Louis  of  Nassau,  in  the  Nether- 
lands, 421-423,  428. 

Love,  Family  of,  352-354. 

X-oyola,  Ignatius,  character  and 
significance,  67,  368,  369  ;  ear- 
ly life  and  conversion,  369- 
372  ;  the  Exercitia,  371,  372, 
376  ;  student  days,  237,  372  ; 
early  disciples,  373,  374  ;  the 
Society  organized,  374  ;  named, 
375  ;  its  characteristics,  376- 
392  ;  Loyola  a  preacher,  382  ; 
the  Sacraments,  382,  383  ;  po- 
litical genius,  386  ;  use  of  edu- 
cation, 386,  387  ;  missions,  388  ; 
death,  381,  403  ;  mentioned, 
462. 

Liitzen,  battle  of,  455. 

Luther,  Hans,  79,  82,  83. 

Luther,  Margaretha,  79,  82. 

Luther,  Martin,  character,  77-79  ; 
birth  and  education,  79-83  ; 
reads  whole  Bible,  81  ;  concern 
of  spirit,  81  ;  becomes  a  monk, 
83-85 ;  influenced  by  Occam, 
40 ;  by  Bernhard,  45  ;  by 
d'Ailli,  168 ;  justification  by 
faith  alone,  86-89  I  teacher  at 
Wittenberg  and  Erfurt,  88-90  ; 
journey  to  Rome,  88,  89  ;  grad- 
ual spiritual  growth,  90-92  ;  the 
Ninety-five  Theses,  94-96  ;  op- 
position aroused,  96,  97  ;  before 


Cajetan,  98,  99 ;  agreement 
with  Miltitz,  105,  106 ;  the 
Leipzig  disputation,  106-108  ; 
Luther's  altered  views,  108- 
lio  ;  three  great  tracts  of  1520, 
111-114  ;  letter  to  Leo  X.,  113, 
114;  burns  the  pope's  bull,  115, 
116;  before  the  Reichstag  of 
Worms,  116-120;  condemned, 
120;  at  the  Wartburg,  1 21-126; 
translates  New  Testament,  122, 
123 ;  returns  to  Wittenberg, 
126,  127  ;  in  the  Peasants' War, 
130-132  ;  his  Augustinianism, 
132,  363  ;  breach  with  Eras- 
mus, 132,  133,  217,  246  ;  mar- 
riage, 133 ;  view  of  church- 
government,  137-140;  changes 
in  worship,  140,  141  ;  the 
Deutsche  Messe,  141,  157;  the 
Catechisms,  143;  Pack's  forgery, 
144  ;  on  baptism,  161  ;  on  the 
Lord's  Supper,  112,  113,  168- 
171,  349;  contrasted  with 
Zwingli  and  Zwingli's  views, 
150,  166-171  ;  rejects  Zwing- 
lians,  146 ;  the  Marburg  Col- 
loquy, 172-176,  181  ;  no  sym- 
pathy with  Zwingli's  political 
schemes,  177 ;  judgment  on 
Zwingli's  death,  180  ;  influences 
CEcolampadius  and  Bucer,  164, 
165  ;  doctrinal  differences  be- 
tween him  and  Calvin,  246,  248, 
249  ;  the  Schwabach  Articles, 
181,  183  ;  at  Coburg,  183  ; 
share  in  the  Augsburg  Confes- 
sion, 182,  183,  185  ;  wishes 
Protestants  represented  in  gen- 
eral council,  194 ;  drafts  the 
Schmalkaldic  Articles,  194  ; 
Philip  of  Hesse's  bigamy,  200, 
201  ;  influence  on  Reformation 
in  Sweden,  279  ;  in  Denmark, 
282,  284  ;  in  Prussia,  285,  286  ; 
in  Bohemia,  288  ;  in  Hungary, 
289  ;  opposed  by  Henry  VIII., 
30C  ;  Hamilton  acquainted 
with,  316  ;  his  originality,  336  ; 


474 


hidex. 


table-talk,  274  ;  compared  with 
Loyola,  368,  369  ;  his  relation 
to  the  radicals,  335,  337,  355  ; 
affection  for  Melanchthon,  loi, 
218  ;  attitude  toward  Schwenk- 
feld,  349,  350  ;  death,  204,  205  ; 
mentioned,  49,  403,  462. 

Luther,  Paul,  89. 

Madrid,  Treaty  of,  see  Treaty. 

Magellan,  Fernando,  33. 

Magni,  bishop  of  Westeras,  281. 

Major,  Georg,  219. 

Major,  John,  318. 

Mantova,  Benedetto  da,  297. 

Manuel,  Niklaus,  163. 

Manz,  Felix,  Anabaptist,  160, 
162,  338. 

Mar,  the  earl  of,  334. 

Marburg  Colloquy,  the,  172-176, 
181. 

Marcellus  II.,  pope,  361. 

Marcourt,  Antoine,  242. 

Marignano  (1515),  battle  of,  151. 

Marineo,  Lucio,  62. 

Marsilius  of  Padua,  36-40. 

Martire,  Pietro,  of  Arona,  62. 

Martire,  Pietro  (Vermigli),  298, 
299. 

Martyr,  Peter,  see  Martire. 

Margaret  of  Austria,  regent  of 
the  Netherlands,  306. 

Margaret  of  Parma,  regent  of  the 
Netherlands,  418,  421. 

Marguerite  d'Angouleme,  char- 
acter, 227  ;  aids  Le  Fevre,  228, 
229  ;  friendship  for  reformers, 
229,  231,  241,  251  ;  relation  to 
Spirituels,  351,  352 ;  men- 
tioned, 410. 

Marguerite  of  Valois,  424. 

Maria,  regent  of  the  Netherlands, 
306. 

Mary  of  Burgundy,  21,  22. 

Mary  I.  of  England,  213,  295, 
298,   299,   310,   311,  321,  323, 

324- 
Mary  II.  of  England,  327. 
Mary  of  Scotland,  betrothal,  313, 

317,    320,    321  ;     marriage    to 


Francis  II.,  324  ;  to  Darnley, 
332  ;  to  Bothwell,  332  ;  return 
to  Scotland,  329,  330  ;  conver- 
sation with  Knox,  330  ;  abdica- 
tion, 333  ;  contest  with  Eliza- 
beth, 408,  433,  434  ;  death,  333, 
434  ;  mentioned,  409,  439. 

Mary  of  Guise,  regent  of  Scot- 
land, 321,  323-326. 

Mathys,  Jan,  Anabaptist,  342, 
343- 

Matthias,  emperor,  443. 

Matthias  of  Janow,  42. 

Maximilian  I.,  emperor,  politics 
of,  17  ;  marriage,  21,  22  ;  rev- 
enue compared  with  that  of 
pope,  23  ;  Reuchlin  contro- 
versy, 74,  76  ;  death,  104. 

Maximilian  11. ,  emperor,  288, 
440. 

Maximilian  of  Bavaria,  in  Thirty 
Years'  War,  442,  443,  445,  446, 
452,  458,  459. 

Mazarin,  cardinal,  457. 

Menno  Simons,  see  Simons. 

Mennonites,  the,  346. 

Melanchthon,  Philip,  character, 
100-102  ;  early  life,  102-104  ; 
inauguration  at  Wittenberg, 
100,  loi  ;  success  as  a  teacher, 
103  ;  at  Leipzig  disputation, 
106  ;  consequent  development, 
no  ;  the  Loci  Communes,  123, 
124  ;  favors  bishops,  139  ;  the 
Saxon  visitation,  142 ;  the 
Marburg  Colloquy,  172-176 ; 
the  Augsburg  Confession  and 
Apology,  182-188  ;  invited  to 
Paris,  242;  appendix  to  Schmal- 
kaldic  Articles,  194,  195  ;  in 
debate  at  Worms  and  Regens- 
burg,  197,  198  ;  Philip  of 
Hesse's  bigamy,  200,  201  ;  the 
Leipzig  Interim,  20S  ;  criti- 
cism of  Luther,  2o3  ;  doctrinal 
peculiarities,  216-218;  attacked, 
218-221;  friendship  for  Calvin, 
255  ;  for  Ursinus,  273  ;  for 
Hamilton,   316 ;    on    Servetus, 


Index. 


475 


269 ;    on    Schwenkfeld,    350 ; 

death,    221,   403;     mentioned, 

29,  244-246,  462. 
Melville,  Andrew,  327,  328. 
Mendoza,  Pedro  de,  59,  60. 
Mercurian,  Everard,  381. 
Merici,  Angela,  366. 
Meyer,  Sebastian,  163. 
Michael  Angelo,  29,  51. 
Milicz  of  Kremsier,  42. 
Miltitz,  Karl  von,  105,  113. 
Missions     to  the   heathen,    388- 

392- 

Mohdcs,  battle  of,  190,  289.  _ 

Montmor,  family  of  Calvin's 
friends,  236. 

Montmorency,  Anne  de,  413. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  29,  31,  308. 

Moritz,  duke  and  elector  of  Sax- 
ony, character,  plans  and  work, 
203-212  ;  favors  Melanchthon, 
218  ;  mentioned,  393. 

Morone,  Giovanni  de,  197,  296. 

Mortmain,  statute  of,  12. 

Morton,  James  Douglas,  earl  of, 

334- 
Miihlberg,  battle  of,  206. 
Miinster,  Anabaptist  tragedy  at, 

342-344, 
Miinzer,    Thomas,    fanatic,    125, 

126,  130,  131,  340,  354- 
Murray,  earl  of,  see  James  Stuart. 
Myconius,  Friedrich,  173. 
Mylne,  Walter,  324. 
Neri,  Filippo  de,  366. 
Netherlands,  Reformation  in  the, 

304-307,  416-423.  427-430. 
Nicholas  I.,  pope,  5. 
Niclaes,    Henrick,   fanatic,   352- 

354- 

Nordlingen,  battle  of,  456. 

Norway,  Reformation  in,  284,  285. 

Nuremberg,  Truce  of,  see  Truce. 

Occam,  William  of,  theologian, 
26,  39,  40,  80,  90,  302. 

CEcolampadius,  Johann,  labors  at 
Basel,  164  ;  in  sacramental  dis- 
pute, 170,  171  ;  at  Marburg 
Colloquy,    172-174 ;    influence 


on  Melanchthon,  217  ;  wel- 
comes Farel,  230  ;  disputation 
at  Berne,  231, 

Oldcastle,  Sir  John,  Lollard,  42. 

Olevianus,  Caspar,  273. 

Olivfetan,  Pierre  Robert,  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible,  228,  239,  242. 

Oratorio,  the,  366. 

Oratory,  Congregation  of  the,  366. 

Oratory  of  Divine  Love,  the,  293, 

294,  357- 
Osiander,  Andreas,  doctnnal  con- 
troversies, 173,  220. 
Oxenstjerna,  Axel,  455. 
Pavia,  battle  of,  134. 
Pack,  Otto  von,  forgery,  143,  I44. 
Paleario,  Aonio,  297. 
Pascal,  Blaise,  384, 
Passau,  Treaty  of,  see  Treaty. 
Paul  III.,    pope,    character    and 
work,  359-361  ;  calls  a  general 
council,     193,    198.    203  ;    ad- 
journs council   from   Trent  to 
Bologna,    207  ;  the  Council  of 
Trent,   198,  392,  393  ;  the  Re- 
gensburg    debate,     198  ;    reor- 
ganizes   the   Inquisition,    198  ; 
relations  to   the  Jesuits,    374- 
376  ;  mentioned,  209,  295. 
Paul  IV.,  pope,  see  Caraffa. 
Peace   of   Augsburg,   provisions, 
214-216,  223  ;  how  interpreted, 
439,  440,  451. 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  458,  459. 
Peasants'  War,  the,  129-132. 
Peasantry,  condition  in  Germany, 

20. 
Pedro  of  Alcantara,  367. 
Perez,  Juan,  292. 
Perkheimer,  Wilibald,  132. 
Perrin,  Ami,  262. 
Perugino,  29. 
Petersen,  Lars,  280,  281. 
Petersen,  Olaf,  279-281. 
Petrarch,  Francesco,  28. 
Peucer,  Kaspar,  221. 
Pfefferkorn,  Johann,  73-75- 
Pflug,  Julius,  198. 
Philip  of  Austria,  marriage,  22. 


476 


Index. 


Philip  I.  of  France,  I2. 

Philip  Augustus  of  France,  lO. 

Philip  IV.  of  France,  ii,  24. 

Philip  of  Hesse,  forms  League 
of  Torgau,  135  ;  the  Romberg 
convention,  138  ;  deceived  by 
Pack,  143,  144  ;  protests  at 
Speier,  145  ;  league  for  Prot- 
estant defence,  146,  172,  173  ; 
inclines  to  Zwinglian  views, 
172,  176,  186  ;  holds  the  Mar- 
burg Colloquy,  172-176;  po- 
litical hopes,  176,  177  ;  signs 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  185, 
186  ;  leader  of  Schmalkaldic 
League,  189 ;  restores  Ulrich 
to  Wiirtemberg,  192  ;  bigamy, 
199-202 ;  use  made  of  it  by 
Charles  V.,  201,  203;  defeated 
and  imprisoned,  205,  206,  210  ; 
released,  212. 

Philip  IL  of  Spain,  Charles  V, 
desires  imperial  succession  for, 
209,  213  ;  accession  and  mar- 
riage, 213  ;  value  to  the  Roman 
cause,  401,  402 ;  policy  and 
reign,  406-408,  414. 415  ;  strug- 
gle for  control  of  the  Nether- 
lands, 307,  416-423,  427-430 ; 
the  Armada,  432-435  ;  attitude 
toward  the  Jesuits,  391  ;  last 
days,  435-438  ;  mentioned,  462. 

Pisano,  Niccolo,  29. 

Pistorius,  Johann,  197. 

Pius  IV.,  pope,  419. 

Pius  v.,  pope,  304,  433. 

Plato,  revived  interest  in,  28. 

Platon,  Gemistos,  28. 

Pocquet,  Antoine,  fanatic,  351, 
352. 

Poland,  Reformation  in,  286,  287. 

Pole,  Reginald,  archbishop  and 
cardinal,  295,  296,  359,  360. 

Polentz,  Georg  von,  bishop,  286. 

Polyglot,  Complutensian,  31,  62, 

63. 
Praemunire,  statute  of,  12. 
Prierias,  Silvestro,  97-99,  114. 
Proles,  Andreas,  84. 


Protestant,  origin  of  name,  145. 

Provisors,  statute  of,  12. 

Prussia,  Reformation  in,  285,  286. 

Puritans,  the,  312,  313. 

Queiss,  Erhard  von,  bishop,  286. 

Quintin,  a  Spirituel,  351,  352. 

Raphael  (Sanzio),  29,  51. 

Ravaillac,  Fran5ois,  438. 

Regensburg  convention,  129. 

Regensburg,  discussions  at,  197, 
198. 

Reichstag,  the  German,  19. 

Reichstag,  at  Augsburg  (1530), 
182-188;  ibid.  (1548),  207; 
ibid.  (1555),  2x2,  214-216  ;  at 
Nuremberg,  128;  at  Speier 
(1526),  136,  138,  140,  142- 
144  ;  ibid.  (1529),  144-146  ; 
ibid.  (1542  and  1544),  202  ;  at 
Worms,  1 16-120. 

Reinhard,  Martin,  282. 

Reinhart,  Anna,  154. 

Renascence,  influence  of  the,  27- 
30. 

Ren6e  of  Ferrara,  251,  296. 

Reuse,  declaration  at,  18. 

Requesens,  Luis  de,  in  the  Neth« 
erlands,  428. 

Resby,  James,  315. 

Reublin,  Wilhelm,  160. 

Reuchlin,  Johann,  services  to 
learning,  29,  31  ;  reformatory 
attitude,  72  ;  his  great  contro- 
versy, 73-76,  97  ;  relations  to 
Melanchthon,  102,  103 ;  men- 
tioned, 364; 

Ricci,  Matteo,  missionary,  390. 

Richard  IL  of  England,  12,  42. 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  442,  447, 
452,  453,457- 

Ridley,  Nicholas,  bishop,  311. 

Rizzio,  David,  332. 

Rodriguez,  Simon,  374,  380. 

Rogers,  John,  311. 

Rojas,  Domingo  de,  292. 

Rome,  the  sack  of,   18,  135,  136. 

Roses,  the  wars  of  the,  13, 

Rothmann,  Bernt,  Anabaptist, 
342-344. 


wSa^' 


Index. 


477 


Rudolph  II.,  emperor,  289,  440, 

442-444. 
Saal,  Margaretha  von  der,  200. 
Sadoleto,  Jacopo,  254,  256,  294, 

359- 
Ste.  Aldegonde,  Philip  of,  421. 
St.  Andre,  Marshal,  413. 
St.    Bartholomew,    massacre    of, 

423-425. 
Sales,  Fran5ois  de,  367. 
Salmeron,  Alonso,  374,  382,  394. 
San  Romano,  Francisco,  292. 
Scholasticism,  decline  of,  25-27. 
Schwabach  Articles,  see  Articles. 
Schwartzerd,  Barbara,  102. 
Schwartzerd,  Georg,  102. 
Schwenkfeld,    Kaspar,    348-351, 

354- 
Scotland, Reformation  in,  313-334. 
Scotus,  Duns,  302,  303. 
Scriptures,    Wiclifs    translation, 

42  ;   pre-Reformation   editions, 

46,    57 ;    Luther's   translation, 

122,  123. 
Sigismund,    August,   of    Poland, 

286. 
Selnecker,  Nikolaus,  222. 
Servetus,  Miguel,  266-269,  300. 
Simons,  Menno,  344-346,  354. 
Sixtus  IV.,  pope,  58,  59,  64,  65. 
Sixtus  v.,  pope,  431,  434. 
Socinianism,  see  Unitarianism. 
Socinus,  see  Sozzini. 
Somerset,  Edward  Seymour,  duke 

of,  320,  321. 
Soto,  Domingo  de,  theologian,  63, 

364,  394- 
Sozzini,  Fausto,  287,  301-304. 
Sozzini,  Lelio,  298,  301, 
Spain,  evangelical    influences  in, 

291,  292. 
Speratus,  Paul,  286. 
Spirituels,    the,   in  general,  351, 

352  ;  at  Geneva,  263,  268. 
Staupitz,  Johannvon,  84-86,  88. 
Storch,  Nikolaus,  125,  126.  | 

Stuart,  James,   earl  of    Murray,  l 

332,  332.  333.  I 


StUbner,  Marx   Thoma,  125,  126, 

130. 
Suleiman    II.     of   Turkey,    190, 

191,  202. 
Supper,  the   Lord's,   controversy 

between    Luther    and    Zwingli 

regarding,   167-176  ;    Melanch- 

thon's  view  on,  217;   Calvin's 

view  on,  220,  221,  246. 
Sweden,  Reformation  in,  278-282. 
Talavera,  Fernando  de,  59. 
Tauler,  Johann,  45,  87. 
Tausen,  Hans,    Danish   reforma- 
tion, 283. 
Tetzel,  Johann,  94-97,  105. 
Theatines,    the,    294,    357,    360, 

365,  374- 
Theresa  de  Jesus,  367. 
Thiene,  Gaetano  di,  294. 
Tillet,    Louis   du,  friendship  for 

Calvin,  241,  242. 
Tilly,  Baron,  445,  446,  450-454. 
Torquemada,  Tomas,  65. 
Torstenson,  Lennart,  458. 
Transylvania,     Reformation      in, 

289,  290. 
Treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  407, 

410,  418,419. 
Treaty  of  Kadan,  192. 
Treaty  of  Madrid,  134. 
Treaty  of  Passau,  212,  215. 
Trent,  Council  of,  see  Council. 
Trie,  Guillaume,  267,  268. 
Triumphus,  Augustinus,  7. 
Truce  of  Nuremberg,  191,  198. 
Truchsess,  Gebhard,  archbishop. 

441. 
Turenne,  458, 

Ulrich  of  Wiirtemberg,  192. 
Union   efforts  between  Catholics 

apd,  Ppfjte^tants,   196-193,  29^. 
Ur;itariini'>ni,  28^,  20Oj  }0^>-304, 

354'.    '''    '■     '    '''  "'     ^    "'     ' 
Urban  II.,  pope,  7,  24. 
U/banVJIL,  pope,  452.     ",  .'  'i^ 
Uisiiiis:  Zaciiarias,  2.';j.    .''/>     ', 
Ursulines,  the,  366.  ' 

Vald^s,  Alfonso  de,  291. 


478 


Index. 


Valdes,  Juan  de,  291,  292,  296- 
299. 

Valero,  Rodrigo  de,  292. 

Vandel,  Pierre,  262. 

Vasa,  Gustavus,  of  Sweden,  279- 
282. 

Vasquez,  Gabriel,  384. 

Vatable,  Franfois,  238,  239. 

Vergerio,  Pietro  Paolo,  299. 

Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  29. 

Viret,  Pierre,  231,  232,  234,  266, 
275. 

Visitation,  Nuns  of  the,  367. 

Vittoria,  Francisco  de,  theolo- 
gian, 63,  364. 

Voes,  Hendrilc,  306. 

Waldenses,  the,  47-50. 

Waldo  of  Lyons,  47. 

Wallenstein ,  Albrecht  of,  448-456. 

Wesel,  Johann  von,  31,  95. 

Westphal,  Joachim,  220,  272. 

Westphalia,  Peace  of,  see  Peace. 

Wiclif,  John,  doctrines  and  in- 
fluence, 12,  40-43,  54  ;  on  the 
church,  246. 

Wilhelra  IV.  of  Bavaria,  381. 

Wilhelra  of  Hesse,  211. 

William  the  Conqueror,  4. 

William  III.  of  England  and 
Scotland,  327. 

William  of  Orange,  the  Nether- 
lands struggle,  420-423,  427- 
430 ;  tolerates  Anabaptists, 
346  ;  mentioned,  434,  462. 

Williams,  Roger,  339. 

Wimpina,  Conrad,  96. 

Wimpheling,  Jakob,  72, 

Wishart,  George,  317,  319. 

Wittenberg  Concord,  see  Concord. 

Wittenberg,    University    of, 

o  f(?nndejd^.8§.  .       »,.,,., 

Woiflin^:  Heirrioh,  14^'  '; 

Wolfgang  of  Anha't,  145,  185. 

Wolmar,  Melchior,  237,  239,  275. 

;V/(^l?v?jr,  cThoinac,   cardind,    69, 


Worms,  Edict  of,  see  Edict. 

Worms,  Reichstag  of,  see  Reichs- 
tag. 

Wyttenbach,  Thomas,  149. 

Xavier,  Francisco  de,  in  Jesuit 
order,  373,  380,  382  ;  mission- 
ary labors,  389,  390 ;  men- 
tioned, 462. 

Ximenes,  Gonzalez  (Francisco), 
services  to  learning,  30,  31,  62  ; 
reformatory  work,  59-68,  70, 
117  ;  opposes  sale  of  indul- 
gences, 93  ;  mentioned,  294, 
308,  357,  368,  462. 

Zaccaria,  Antonio,  366. 

Zanchi,  Jeronimo,  299. 

Zdpolya,  John,  of  Hungary  and 
Transylvania,  289,  290. 

Zwickau  prophets,  125-127. 

Zwingli,  Barthomaus,  149. 

Zwingli,  Ulrich,  early  life,  149- 
152 ;  spiritual  development, 
150  ;  compared  with  Luther, 
150 ;  relative  priority  in  re- 
form, 152  ;  call  to  Zurich,  152, 
153  ;  the  Archcteles,  153  ;  mar- 
riage, 154  ;  public  debates,  154- 
156,  162,  164,  231  ;  alterations 
in  worship,  156-15 8  ;  reorgan- 
ization of  the  Zurich  church, 
'58,  159  ;  talents  as  an  organ- 
izer, 159 ;  contests  with  the 
Anabaptists,  159-163,  335,  337, 
355  ;  on  the  salvation  of  hea- 
then, 161  ;  influence  on  Qico- 
lampadius,  164  ;  theologic  dif- 
ferences from  Luther,  1 66-1 71  ; 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Sup- 
per, 168-171,  246,  349;  at  the 
Marburg  Colloquy,  172-176 ; 
sends  confession  to  Charles  V., 
186;  on  the  Church,  246;  on 
obedience  to  rulers,  248  ;  his 
Augustinianism,  363  ;  political 
plans,  176-179  ;  death,  179, 
189  ;  mentioned,  49,  403,  462. 


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